Loading Memories with Dave from Monster Dear Monster

[00:00:22] Hello, hello, welcome to A Novel Console, your weekly podcast where we talk about books, games, food and stuff that caught our attention during the week.

[00:00:28] This week is another very special Loading Memories episode.

[00:00:32] This time I have Dave from Monster Dear Monster.

[00:00:36] He is here to join us and he has been showing me games over Twitter that have been blowing my mind.

[00:00:43] And I cannot wait to see what else he shows me because this, we haven't even recorded and already has been an incredible experience talking to this man.

[00:00:51] Dave, how are you doing today?

[00:00:53] I'm doing pretty good. It's the weekend yet again, so that's always good on my side of things.

[00:01:00] Right, right. It's early Sunday morning, at least early for me.

[00:01:05] So we're just going to start the day off on the right foot today.

[00:01:11] So tell me about Monster Dear Monster.

[00:01:14] Yeah, so basically I started up the podcast because I was in the Souls community of podcasts some years ago.

[00:01:26] And a few of the episodes I was listening to, I was like, oh, this, I think at the time I, the podcast, like word, I don't know.

[00:01:38] So the sense of it seemed like it was a professional thing and you did, you had to have all this equipment.

[00:01:44] And I was like, oh, you know what? There's, I'm listening to some guys and they're just chatting.

[00:01:48] And the barrier to entry once I looked into it was really little.

[00:01:52] You just needed a microphone and something to record stuff on.

[00:01:56] And I, I enjoy mythology and just creature feature movies and like spooky tales.

[00:02:06] So I figured I would put some of my like academic learning to use because my, my degree is in Asian history.

[00:02:16] And I was like, I'm, I'm familiar with a lot of this stuff, um, particularly from, uh, like Japan and Korea.

[00:02:23] So I, I love like the little spooky monsters and, uh, so many games kind of traffic in that.

[00:02:31] And I was like, I have tons of, uh, like mythology books.

[00:02:37] And I would, I started like digging through those and going, okay, so say for me, I started the podcast off with Neo and that has a bunch of yokai in it.

[00:02:47] But I went and dug into like the history of these specific yokai.

[00:02:51] Cause there's like little lower bits in the game, but it didn't really fill in like the backstories.

[00:02:57] It's like, I can do that.

[00:02:58] Uh, and so I sat down and I basically wrote a research paper and then tried to read it and realized that sounds boring.

[00:03:09] Um, the information I thought was good, but my delivery, I just didn't have it.

[00:03:13] I didn't, I was like, okay, maybe I have to make a script.

[00:03:15] I don't know.

[00:03:17] And I got a few guys, uh, that were like, Hey, we love the way you're presenting it, but it would probably sound better if you were talking to somebody.

[00:03:25] And that's my original, uh, first two co-hosts on monster to monster.

[00:03:30] We just got together and dove into like Godzilla movies and just some other stuff that wasn't always video game, um, centric, but, uh, yeah, over the years we've been doing it.

[00:03:41] This is our seventh year.

[00:03:43] Um, Oh wow.

[00:03:44] Wrapping up and it's, we do books, movies, everything.

[00:03:49] So say we take vampires and we will over time look at a few vampire movies.

[00:03:55] Um, we'll look at like the original Dracula, Carmilla, other stories that inspired, uh, the vampire mythos, um, and kind of contrast those and then look at like how they've developed over time.

[00:04:08] Um, specifically even just in the last 30, 40 years, if you look at a zombie movie or a vampire movie from like say 1970, that's not how they are in like 2020 vampires.

[00:04:21] They're not the same.

[00:04:22] You know, we have an era of sparkly vampires.

[00:04:25] We have vampires that can suck your blood out from like distances in, in a few of like the Hong Kong movies.

[00:04:32] So, um, just that kind of holistic experience and then looking at those and then just having, usually having fun watching like bad movies a lot of the time, if I'm being honest.

[00:04:44] Um, and, and, you know, going back and checking out the books and stuff too.

[00:04:48] So it's, uh, it's a lot of fun.

[00:04:49] We just did, um, we don't skip on the video games.

[00:04:53] We did an entire, uh, Elden Ring lore through.

[00:04:56] That was like 20 something hours, um, of episodes.

[00:05:00] And the same thing with Liza P.

[00:05:02] Uh, I, I really dug that.

[00:05:04] Like let's do steampunk Pinocchio.

[00:05:06] That sounds great.

[00:05:07] Uh, so that's again, it's like 12 hours of just talking about Liza P and then kind of going through and looking at all the NPCs and the weirdo creatures and like where those came from and just having a blast.

[00:05:22] You know, I am not big on, on souls likes, but Liza P did, uh, resonate with me.

[00:05:32] And I'm, I'm pretty sure that while I was playing, I saw like monsters and stuff.

[00:05:38] I'm like, oh, I wonder if that has anything to do with Pinocchio.

[00:05:41] But you know, I, I, I wasn't like into it enough to stop and look into them because I'm pretty sure that, you know, some of the NPCs that you find have something to do with the Pinocchio story.

[00:05:52] But I am definitely going to listen to that episode because that sounds very interesting.

[00:05:58] I want to learn more because that might actually get me to come back into the game because I, I, I, I need to, I need to, it was very fun.

[00:06:05] The little bit, well, the nine hours that I put into it.

[00:06:09] Yeah.

[00:06:10] And we, we broke it apart.

[00:06:11] So it's like, I want to say it's five episodes for the whole game, but they're divided by area.

[00:06:17] So you can, there, we've like sort of spoiler walled them just the way we built it up together.

[00:06:24] And if you're like, oh, this is the first, I think we just stopped it by bosses.

[00:06:28] So if you get up to the first boss, we covered that, like that run.

[00:06:32] Uh, and then you can proceed and like do the next part and then maybe go back and listen to the episode.

[00:06:38] That way you're not spoiling yourself as you go through the game.

[00:06:40] Right.

[00:06:41] Right.

[00:06:41] And you got about 252 episodes.

[00:06:45] Yeah.

[00:06:46] Yeah.

[00:06:46] It's, uh, 400 hours of, of, uh, chatter on, uh, spooky things.

[00:06:53] You know, usually when, when, when you hear about like breakdown of, of monsters and stuff

[00:06:59] in media, usually you think that the episodes are going to be four or five hours long because

[00:07:05] there's just so much to talk about, but I'm seeing that the episodes range from an hour to

[00:07:10] an hour 30 max.

[00:07:12] There's like maybe a couple, two hours, but you know, you're covering vampires.

[00:07:16] There's a lot to talk about there.

[00:07:18] Yeah.

[00:07:18] So these, these are very doable episodes and there's a bunch of topics that are, are very

[00:07:26] interesting.

[00:07:26] You know, you have aliens, kaiju, mutants, uh, vampires, bugs, bunch of cool stuff.

[00:07:35] Man.

[00:07:35] Anything could be a monster.

[00:07:37] I mean, there's some that's man was definitely the monster there.

[00:07:40] So, oh yeah.

[00:07:41] Yeah.

[00:07:42] It's like, uh, uh, it's played out cause everybody said it since it came out.

[00:07:46] It's like the walking dead.

[00:07:48] They're zombies, but the real monster is man.

[00:07:50] Yeah.

[00:07:50] Yeah.

[00:07:51] Yeah.

[00:07:52] Yeah.

[00:07:52] So I, I really wanted to, to give it a listen.

[00:07:55] I wanted to listen to the Godzilla minus one before we recorded.

[00:07:58] Cause I like to do my research before, but work has just been fucking horrific this week.

[00:08:04] I know how it goes.

[00:08:05] So I have that Godzilla minus one episode queued in because that movie was just fucking incredible.

[00:08:11] It was so good.

[00:08:13] Oh yeah.

[00:08:13] There's nothing but sugar for that movie on that episode.

[00:08:17] Ah, man.

[00:08:18] I need to, since I'm going out soon, I'm, I'm probably going to like download it and queue

[00:08:24] it up for the whole flight.

[00:08:25] Cause it's long enough that the, I will start listening when I take off and then what did

[00:08:29] when I land?

[00:08:30] Yeah.

[00:08:31] Yeah.

[00:08:31] You said you were headed to New York.

[00:08:33] Oh yeah.

[00:08:34] Yeah.

[00:08:34] Yeah.

[00:08:35] I'm final preparations of getting everything ready.

[00:08:38] But New York's not important right now.

[00:08:40] What's important is, is, is you.

[00:08:42] So you showed me a bunch of games.

[00:08:45] You showed me the one that blew my mind that I was like, holy fuck.

[00:08:49] I didn't know that this was a thing for so long was a Fasana do.

[00:08:55] Yeah.

[00:08:56] Yeah.

[00:08:58] So tell me about that.

[00:09:01] So when that game came out, I am trying to think.

[00:09:04] Like I was, I was, I was a little guy.

[00:09:06] Um, it is, it's a side scroller.

[00:09:11] Um, it's Nihon Falcom and they're, they've spun off and done a few other things.

[00:09:16] Uh, they do the East series and then they get into all of the tales of, um, uh, and that particular

[00:09:23] one is a spinoff of the original dragon slayer game on the MSX.

[00:09:28] So that's like a 1983 game.

[00:09:31] Um, but Faxanadu, uh, came out on the Nintendo and it's, it's a fantasy game where I think it subverts some expectations.

[00:09:45] The lore itself behind it is built on like the world tree.

[00:09:48] So it dress.

[00:09:49] So it's, it's some, it's a little bit of Tolkien fantasy tropes mixed in with some Norse mythology.

[00:09:56] Uh, and then like a little couple of little twists.

[00:10:00] So like when you're, for an example, you're, when you're saving your game, you go into like a little church and you have to remember your mantra.

[00:10:08] So like there's a cleric and he's like, remember your mantra.

[00:10:10] And it's a, it's of course, it's just a giant string of characters that you have to write down as your password.

[00:10:14] Um, but you're trying to save, uh, your little town is being invaded by, uh, dwarves and elves, but the dwarves and elves in this are, are transfigured horrendous little creatures.

[00:10:31] And I remember distinctly when I was playing this game that I was like, that's not what a dwarf looks like.

[00:10:39] That's not an elf.

[00:10:40] That's like a little slug thing with spikes on it.

[00:10:43] That's weird.

[00:10:43] Um, and just realizing, oh, there's something poisoning the world tree and it's, it's, it's transfiguring all like the other races and everyone's under duress.

[00:10:57] And so the game itself, uh, side scrolling platformer and you, you're ascending the tree.

[00:11:03] So every little bit you go up is some caves and some little towns.

[00:11:07] They're just going higher and higher in the world tree.

[00:11:10] Um, it has like a little, you have MP for your spells and you just have general, like a sword attack.

[00:11:19] Uh, it's not nothing, nothing fancy, but, um, I think what stands out the most from it aside from like the little cobbled together, strange setting is the music.

[00:11:28] The music is fantastic for this game.

[00:11:30] So I definitely recommend anyone to check out the OST.

[00:11:34] I'm looking at it right now and I see that there's like conversation with, um, like merchants and stuff and they have pretty well detailed, like a portrait, portraits of the characters you're talking to.

[00:11:47] Yeah.

[00:11:48] Yeah.

[00:11:48] The, the game came out in the later years of the NES.

[00:11:51] So they were pushing the hardware a little bit more.

[00:11:54] Um, the, they'll, they'll talk to you.

[00:11:58] Of course, there's no voice lines, um, basically just from the system, but it does have like a little chirpy, uh, tone as like the text is like spitting out on the screen, like a little typewriter effect.

[00:12:12] Um, but yeah, they, they, the, I remember the main merchant in like the first town has like a little cigarette and he's just chilling on his, like he's leaning over the counter and just like telling you, Hey, you know, kid, get some, get some, buy my gear.

[00:12:26] And he's just, his little cigarettes go and you're like, okay, that's, he's charming.

[00:12:31] See, it, it, it looks a lot to me like, uh, altered beast, like a NES version of altered beast.

[00:12:37] But yeah, uh, I think it's a little bit more complex just because it has RPG elements in it.

[00:12:43] Right.

[00:12:44] Right.

[00:12:44] And it, the, the starting town, at least from what I saw in the video is very detailed.

[00:12:49] Like you can see like all the separate, um, blocks on the walls of the buildings and everything.

[00:12:57] It, it does look like a very interesting game.

[00:13:00] I'm, I'm actually gonna add it on cause I've, I've been meaning to try to figure out the NES for a very long time.

[00:13:07] Mm-hmm.

[00:13:08] Because I, I, I just cannot get into it no matter how hard I try.

[00:13:13] So maybe this will help.

[00:13:14] Yeah, I can recommend some games for that.

[00:13:16] That are, you kind of want to look at the system later in its life cycle.

[00:13:21] Uh, the games will start to resemble things that you're more, maybe more familiar with the Super NES.

[00:13:28] Um, Vaxated is a pretty good example because it's a game where, uh, as a, like as a kid, you're say, say you go and play Mario.

[00:13:36] Uh, or Zelda.

[00:13:39] Um, and you look at the sprites and that there's an idea of a shape.

[00:13:44] Like it, it represents something you can tell, but it's not quite there.

[00:13:50] Um, and I, I remember distinctly because these, um, all, when the games came out of the box, you had the manual.

[00:13:56] And I just would love to sit there and look at the manual.

[00:13:58] It had like illustrations.

[00:14:00] And so you had something to look at and go, okay, I'm playing Legend of Zelda.

[00:14:07] And this is supposed to be like an Octorock or a Moblin, but it's just a blob.

[00:14:12] Right.

[00:14:12] But you look at the manual and go, okay, yeah, this is a weird little piggy guy.

[00:14:17] And that's what it's supposed to be.

[00:14:18] So you just, your head just like transposes that and you can like see in the game.

[00:14:23] Um, but with something like Faxanidu, they put a lot of work into this, um, the pixel art and the sprites.

[00:14:31] So you don't have to like stretch as far to imagine what's going on there.

[00:14:35] Well, you can see it kind of clearly.

[00:14:36] It's a little more, the fidelity of that's a little higher than say something like Castlevania 2.

[00:14:43] Yeah.

[00:14:44] Yeah.

[00:14:44] Yeah.

[00:14:44] No, definitely.

[00:14:45] It does look a lot more detailed than, than what the Castlevania games on the NES, uh, look like, which I have never played those game.

[00:14:53] I have always thought about playing them.

[00:14:55] Even though I have the, the Castlevania collection on switch, I have never touched them and people are like, oh, you should start with three.

[00:15:02] And I'm like, I don't know.

[00:15:04] I almost said, yeah, you should start with three.

[00:15:07] Uh, just the, that's a little, um, it's a little fun.

[00:15:12] I wonder you have more than one character.

[00:15:13] Uh, the platforming is not, it's still, it's still kind of that pixel perfect thing that it wants from you.

[00:15:19] It wants you to jump specifically and like land.

[00:15:22] But, uh, I, I played Castlevania 2 first.

[00:15:27] Uh, so Simon's quest, I just really love that.

[00:15:31] The, the sound, the, again, the soundtrack, usually that, that like seals the deal for me if it has good, uh, background music.

[00:15:38] Um, with that game.

[00:15:41] Um, you need a walkthrough because of the translations were like accidentally they're wrong.

[00:15:47] And so you're listening to NPCs and things.

[00:15:49] They're telling you not, not the correct thing.

[00:15:51] Cause it just was translated poorly.

[00:15:53] Um, so you, I would play that with a walkthrough, uh, and just to, just to enjoy the gaming experience.

[00:15:58] Cause otherwise it's very frustrating.

[00:16:00] It's not a long game, but yeah.

[00:16:02] If you try to like, just listen to the NPCs in town, you're not going to figure out what to do next.

[00:16:07] Now, do you know if there had, there has been like a fan translation where they fixed the, the translation for it?

[00:16:14] Or, or have you just only played the release version?

[00:16:18] Yeah.

[00:16:18] I just played the related cartridge.

[00:16:20] Okay.

[00:16:20] Um, yeah, I, I was like, I don't know, nine or eight or nine when I played that.

[00:16:25] So that's a, that's a few years ago.

[00:16:27] Um, I will say for facts and ado, um, a few years ago, they released a, um, like a remaster.

[00:16:38] Just, it was a fan remaster.

[00:16:40] So it's the full game and they just tightened up, um, some of the graphics.

[00:16:44] Uh, they did do a rearrangement of the score.

[00:16:48] I prefer the original music, but as a gameplay experience, it's smoother and it does look a

[00:16:54] little nicer and that's on PC.

[00:16:56] So you can just get, I don't think it's on steam or anything, but you have to Google it.

[00:17:01] I don't know where you'd get it.

[00:17:02] Right.

[00:17:03] Right.

[00:17:03] Right.

[00:17:03] Right.

[00:17:04] I'm, I'm probably there.

[00:17:06] There might be like, cause there's, there's a rum for everything on, on city romance.

[00:17:11] Um, I even found out that there's a Boktai three.

[00:17:14] And when I saw it, I was like, holy shit, I thought there was just two.

[00:17:17] Oh yeah.

[00:17:18] It's three solar boy Django or is that two?

[00:17:21] Uh, the solar boy Django is one, uh, three is a badass attack.

[00:17:27] Uh, it's like Django's brother is around for some reason and he imprisons Django and

[00:17:34] the whole game is you trying to escape the tower you're imprisoned in.

[00:17:37] Yeah.

[00:17:38] Oh, I, um, so I didn't play those games.

[00:17:40] My buddy did.

[00:17:41] Um, and I, I was, when I worked at a, I was a manager for a video store for years.

[00:17:46] Um, and so on breaks or whatever, when it was slow, he would just bring, he would just

[00:17:51] play his game.

[00:17:52] But I went to, um, uh, it was a computer store.

[00:17:58] Um, and I bought a, there was a, I don't know why they had it.

[00:18:02] They had a little UV pen where you could like, oh, you can look up fingerprints or whatever.

[00:18:07] It did just little thing.

[00:18:07] So I bought that and then I could shine that on the cartridge and it would just like full

[00:18:11] power him all the time.

[00:18:13] It's like, what a, you know, what a silly little gimmick, but I was like, you know, he's

[00:18:17] like, oh, I can't play it at night here.

[00:18:18] Here's this little, little pen light.

[00:18:20] You can shine it on your, your power up your solar boy.

[00:18:24] Right.

[00:18:25] It's all Kojima.

[00:18:26] That was all his idea.

[00:18:27] And, uh, there, there's a podcast called get played.

[00:18:31] And a few years ago they covered the first, uh, Boktai game and, uh, Heather, Heather Ann

[00:18:39] Campbell, one of the hosts said that she went to a coffee shop with like a UV light and she

[00:18:44] like put it on the table and turn it on.

[00:18:46] And she would play towards the UV light.

[00:18:49] I just thought that was the funniest shit to see.

[00:18:52] Like a grown woman at a cafe full of people just shining her UV light at a game boy.

[00:18:58] Hey, look, you gotta play it.

[00:19:00] You gotta get some time in and that, and just that conceit.

[00:19:03] It's like, it's, it's fun and weird.

[00:19:06] Um, but it's like, you put that on a system that doesn't look good in the daylight.

[00:19:13] Like you're in direct sunlight, you can't see it.

[00:19:15] So it's like, okay, I don't, I get why you're doing that.

[00:19:20] That's neat.

[00:19:20] But yeah, everyone's just, let's just go get a UV light.

[00:19:24] Right.

[00:19:24] Yeah.

[00:19:25] And the cool thing is that when you, you play it on the steam deck, at least the, the versions

[00:19:28] of one and two that I found, uh, they're modded so that you can have like maximum UV light

[00:19:35] all the time, even at night, because it has like its internal clock and it tells, and it

[00:19:40] knows when it's nighttime.

[00:19:41] It even knows when it's daylight savings time, which is crazy.

[00:19:45] Um, so you have like maximum UV light in the middle of the night and you're just fighting

[00:19:49] vampires for like the sun shining for some reason at night.

[00:19:53] It's great.

[00:19:54] Um, I really need to, to play those games.

[00:19:57] Cause I, I played them back when I was a teenager and I didn't know that there were like stealth

[00:20:02] ish games.

[00:20:03] Cause it's like solar boy metal gear.

[00:20:07] Yeah.

[00:20:07] Um, and I was awful at them cause I didn't know what to do, but now that I'm an adult

[00:20:12] and I know English, I could probably play them.

[00:20:13] Um, yeah, that, yeah, that does help.

[00:20:17] Yeah.

[00:20:17] There's, there's been quite a few games where I'll go back, um, and try to play them and

[00:20:23] like, they're really difficult.

[00:20:24] And I, I'm going, I remember not having this trouble as a child.

[00:20:29] Like I, this was fine because there was no other experience.

[00:20:32] Like this is the games you played.

[00:20:34] Um, and then realized, oh, I didn't have as much trouble because I sat there for three

[00:20:39] months all summer long.

[00:20:40] Like, you know, banging my head against a level or something.

[00:20:43] Whereas I want, you know, I'm trying to play it and like, oh, 30 minutes to get to the

[00:20:49] end of the level.

[00:20:50] No.

[00:20:52] No.

[00:20:52] Yeah.

[00:20:53] Um, I, I beat, I've said this a bunch of times already on the series.

[00:20:56] I beat the original Mario bros on game boy color and it's super screen crunched and whatever.

[00:21:03] And now when I try to play that game, if I make it out of the first world, I'm lucky.

[00:21:07] Yeah.

[00:21:07] Cause I don't know how I did it before.

[00:21:10] It's, it's crazy.

[00:21:12] Yeah.

[00:21:12] It's just like a, it's like a state, um, state of mind.

[00:21:15] I think you have to be in and, or just, um, like hand eye coordination to where I guess

[00:21:21] a good example would be if you play fighting games and then you stop for a while and then

[00:21:25] go back to play.

[00:21:26] And it's like, no, it's not your hands just don't want to do the thing.

[00:21:29] Uh, did you ever see the, um, so there's, there's a large subset of rhythm games and most

[00:21:37] of those have been like arcade only, but in, I want to say 2004 or five, uh, they ported

[00:21:46] a game called 2dx, which is a, um, a DJ rhythm game.

[00:21:52] So you have a little turntable and like you have a little record scratcher and then a few

[00:21:56] like keys.

[00:22:00] Uh, I remember DJ hero and beat mania.

[00:22:04] Yeah.

[00:22:05] It's, it's around that same time because they've been money games.

[00:22:09] You can use, um, that, uh, controller on, but I see the machine, the arcade machine.

[00:22:17] Wow.

[00:22:17] This is wild.

[00:22:18] It has a DJ table.

[00:22:20] Yeah.

[00:22:21] And you, you, the, um, the, the PS2, uh, port of it had like a miniature version of that.

[00:22:28] Really?

[00:22:32] That is awesome.

[00:22:34] It's, it's, it's great.

[00:22:36] Um, and, but the, the hand, the coordination you need for that is very specific.

[00:22:41] And I sat there and I'd, I'd play games usually when I got home after work.

[00:22:45] So it's like two o'clock in the morning and I, I spent a lot of time playing that game.

[00:22:50] And then I, uh, I think I was moving or something.

[00:22:52] So I picked it up a few years later.

[00:22:54] I was like, Oh, I found my controller.

[00:22:55] Oh, dust this thing off and I'll, I'll play a couple of tracks.

[00:22:58] No.

[00:22:59] I was like, what's the, what my hand is supposed to do.

[00:23:02] No.

[00:23:02] How, how was I playing this?

[00:23:04] Um, and it's just that, like that zone or you get used to something, but you, you forget

[00:23:10] that, Oh, you built these skills up over time.

[00:23:13] And it was like hours of playing to get to where you could play like the, the, the harder

[00:23:19] tracks.

[00:23:20] And it's like, Oh, I figured I could just, my favorite song is this one, but it's a, like

[00:23:23] a level three and nope.

[00:23:25] Can't play that.

[00:23:26] Right.

[00:23:27] Yeah.

[00:23:28] No, I, I, I, I, yeah, I, I get that.

[00:23:31] Cause, um, who was it?

[00:23:32] My cousin had DJ hero and I went over to his house a couple of times and played it.

[00:23:38] And then he just lent it to me for some reason.

[00:23:40] And when he lent it to me, I couldn't figure it out.

[00:23:42] I couldn't.

[00:23:43] Cause you have to like move like this little bar to move like the colors on the track.

[00:23:49] Yeah.

[00:23:49] Because sometimes they move and then you have to press the button.

[00:23:52] And for some reason I just kept scratching by accident every time I moved the thing.

[00:23:56] So I can't imagine with that much, many more buttons, especially if it's like fast, like

[00:24:03] beat maniac.

[00:24:04] Yeah.

[00:24:04] It's fast.

[00:24:05] That is insane.

[00:24:06] Yeah.

[00:24:07] You're like, you're, you're hitting like the little pips, but you're basically kind of

[00:24:12] playing on a keyboard where it's, uh, I think it was like five black keys and four white

[00:24:17] keys, but you have to kind of hit them with your palm.

[00:24:20] Like you can't use your finger.

[00:24:22] And so you're wiggling your hand, but it's, it's enough to hit like the individual buttons.

[00:24:27] It's, it's a lot.

[00:24:29] Like if you, you can probably watch a YouTube thing of just seeing how fast the tracks are.

[00:24:33] The music is good.

[00:24:34] Um, but it's, yeah, it's a tough game.

[00:24:37] Um, yeah, just, just things like that where skill over time, like you don't, we, we play

[00:24:43] a lot of games.

[00:24:44] I think most of us, if we're call ourselves a gamer or whatever, we've been playing games

[00:24:48] for a long time and that skill doesn't like, it's not something you, if you're not maintaining

[00:24:55] it, like it can go away, particularly on get them say it's like a shmup or something, uh,

[00:25:01] go back to play that.

[00:25:03] And it's like, okay, yeah, no, I tried to play gradius.

[00:25:06] It's like, just dying.

[00:25:10] Yeah.

[00:25:11] Yeah.

[00:25:11] No, hell even, even, uh, platformers like Mario 64, if, if you don't play something like

[00:25:18] it constantly, you're not going to be able to get too far.

[00:25:22] Cause I beat Mario 64 a handful of times and I beaten the three, the DS version a bunch

[00:25:28] of times.

[00:25:29] But then when the all-stars collection came out, the 3d collection, I got stuck on the

[00:25:35] pyramid world.

[00:25:36] Like I couldn't get past it for some reason.

[00:25:39] I'm like, I know I beat this.

[00:25:41] What the hell is wrong?

[00:25:42] It's just, I'm not good enough anymore.

[00:25:44] Yeah.

[00:25:45] And that's, that's been a tough thing.

[00:25:47] Uh, when Mario's transitioned and decided to be like, we're just going to pretty much

[00:25:52] do only 3d Mario's with a couple offshoots of the side scrolling ones.

[00:25:57] Um, I, I think I fell off of them.

[00:26:00] I, I played, um, uh, Odyssey is Odyssey with the hat.

[00:26:06] Yes.

[00:26:07] That one is fantastic.

[00:26:09] Yeah.

[00:26:09] That was good.

[00:26:11] I watched a buddy play the you're in the universe.

[00:26:17] I don't know.

[00:26:18] Galaxy.

[00:26:19] Mario galaxy.

[00:26:20] Yeah.

[00:26:20] Galaxy.

[00:26:21] Yeah.

[00:26:21] Um, yeah, I think the last one I played is where you had like the little, uh, the little

[00:26:25] water backpack.

[00:26:26] I liked that.

[00:26:27] Okay.

[00:26:27] So that's, that's sunshine.

[00:26:28] I've never played that one.

[00:26:30] That one's weird.

[00:26:31] I mean, they're all a little weird, but that one's, that one's where you got a little talking

[00:26:34] water backpack.

[00:26:35] It's like, ah, that sounds weird and fun.

[00:26:39] Right.

[00:26:39] And I need something, something different on the game cube, you know?

[00:26:43] Uh, that's the one where they take the long jump away.

[00:26:46] So you can't do the, you know, when you're running and you crouch and jump.

[00:26:50] So he does the, the very long jump.

[00:26:51] They took that away in that game and people.

[00:26:53] Yeah.

[00:26:53] I think you just slide.

[00:26:56] I think they want you to slide and jump.

[00:26:59] Like you, you, you shoot the water out and it makes a trail and then you slide on it.

[00:27:03] And then you see, yeah.

[00:27:05] And launch yourself.

[00:27:06] It's been a, it's been a minute.

[00:27:08] I played that when it came out.

[00:27:10] So I don't, I don't know.

[00:27:12] Um, yeah, I, I don't pick like any particular genre.

[00:27:17] I play like pretty much everything.

[00:27:20] Um, uh, I will say I started off with like weird little PC games, um, sci-fi stuff or just

[00:27:29] kind of whatever it was, whatever my dad was like, here's a game and it's the eighties.

[00:27:33] So there was no, like, I don't think there was a rating system.

[00:27:37] I think they just, the games were just what you got.

[00:27:40] I remember there was one called, um, barbarian on the Atari ST.

[00:27:44] And I think it was also on the Commodore 64.

[00:27:47] Uh, but the barbarian game, it's like a dueling game.

[00:27:51] And I, I just, I loved Conan, like the movie.

[00:27:56] And it looks like it's, it's definitely like Conan adjacent.

[00:28:01] It's not Conan, but it's Conan.

[00:28:03] Like they couldn't get the rights for it or something.

[00:28:06] So they just like, it's barbarian.

[00:28:08] Um, right.

[00:28:09] But you're definitely doing like, you spin and just lop the, uh, opponent's head off and

[00:28:15] there's mountains of blood.

[00:28:16] And I'm like, yeah, that's just the games I play.

[00:28:19] Oh yeah.

[00:28:20] I see it.

[00:28:21] Like the, there's a still for, for the game for Wikipedia and it's just like a head

[00:28:25] in the air and the body spewing up blood.

[00:28:27] Yeah, there's, there's blood.

[00:28:28] There's, um, I played like, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh,

[00:28:31] karate master and ninja and just whatever, whatever we had.

[00:28:36] I, I don't remember.

[00:28:37] Um, a big one I played though was a time bandit.

[00:28:40] I love time bandit.

[00:28:42] It's a, it's a little, um, kind of like gauntlet, I guess would be the easiest comparison.

[00:28:50] Okay.

[00:28:50] So you've got your little guy and you're just running around, uh, a map and it's sort of

[00:28:55] Pac-Man like where everything's, um, corridors and you're just shooting things and just trying

[00:29:00] to get to the exit.

[00:29:01] You got to find a key and you get to the exit.

[00:29:03] Um, right.

[00:29:04] The big conceit.

[00:29:05] That's the one you sent me that I said that looked like, uh, zombies ate my neighbors.

[00:29:10] Yeah.

[00:29:10] Yeah.

[00:29:11] It's that same style of game.

[00:29:14] Yeah.

[00:29:14] Right.

[00:29:16] That one looks, looks very impressive for it.

[00:29:19] That you said that was for what for, for the Atari?

[00:29:22] Uh, yeah, it was ported to the Atari eventually.

[00:29:25] I think it's an Amiga game.

[00:29:26] Um, it came out in 1983 originally.

[00:29:29] I didn't play it till like 86 or 87.

[00:29:33] Um, they ported it on a bunch of systems, uh, and they finally, I think recently did a steam

[00:29:40] port of it, but unfortunately it is keyed to, um, you know, these, these systems have

[00:29:48] like one megabyte of memory.

[00:29:50] So if you play them on a, uh, they're overclocked.

[00:29:53] If you played on anything more recent and it just moves too fast, I think in the game, there's

[00:29:59] a debug menu where you can slow it back down.

[00:30:02] Um, I, I picked up a book that was written in, uh, 2010 just recently.

[00:30:09] And it's a, it's a, a little bit, it's a history of time bandit and it's, it has the original

[00:30:14] kind of game manual stuff in it.

[00:30:17] Uh, a breakdown of all the levels.

[00:30:20] And then it has like time bandit lore.

[00:30:23] I was like, okay.

[00:30:24] Um, there's like little short stories and all kinds of, I was like, I, someone really

[00:30:28] went deep into this game and just loved it so much.

[00:30:32] They wrote a book.

[00:30:33] Um, right.

[00:30:34] But yeah, I, I played that game a lot.

[00:30:37] So the big conceit is you're in, uh, this like nexus zone.

[00:30:41] It's like a little hub world.

[00:30:42] And then you can move your little guy to, uh, one of like, I think it's like 12 worlds and

[00:30:48] each one has a theme.

[00:30:49] So there was like, there is an Egypt level.

[00:30:51] There is a space station.

[00:30:53] It feels kind of like, um, DuckTales where you can just like, I'm going to the moon.

[00:30:58] Right.

[00:30:59] Um, and your, your ultimate goal, I think it's just to, to, to, I don't know what you,

[00:31:05] I never beat the game.

[00:31:06] It's, it's a long game.

[00:31:07] Um, so I guess an example would be if you go into a level, uh, you, and you beat it,

[00:31:13] you can go back into that level and there's four different versions and each one's harder.

[00:31:18] Uh, it starts like reversing the map and things.

[00:31:23] And you're supposed to clear every little zone, but like four times each it's, it would

[00:31:28] take a long time.

[00:31:29] They're not, they're not long, but they're not short levels and you die.

[00:31:32] You only have a set amount of lives.

[00:31:36] Um, but, uh, you, it's, it's two player.

[00:31:38] And I thought that it's the funnest.

[00:31:40] And at the time for me, it was scary, but if you're playing with a second person and they

[00:31:45] die, it summons like a little shadow version of them on the main map.

[00:31:51] And that it'll try to hunt you down for revenge.

[00:31:53] Cause like you survived the fight.

[00:31:55] So it's mad at you.

[00:31:57] Um, and there's a spaceship that comes if you, if you spend too long on the map and you're

[00:32:02] just putzing around, not entering a level, this little ship comes and it grabs you and

[00:32:06] tosses you into a level.

[00:32:08] It just, it's like a randomizer, but it throws you into one and it says the universe needs

[00:32:12] your help.

[00:32:12] So sometimes it could be a real hard level.

[00:32:15] That's funny.

[00:32:17] Um, I'm, I'm looking at it right now and, uh, I saw that there was kind of like an NPC that

[00:32:23] the character talked to.

[00:32:25] So yeah, there's, um, NPCs in the, there's a couple of quests like you, you go through

[00:32:31] and you'll, I think there's a castle level and there's a little dude that's like, you

[00:32:35] have to save the King or whatever.

[00:32:37] He gives you a little thing to do.

[00:32:40] And so there's items and stuff you can pick up where you actually have to, it's while

[00:32:46] it looks kind of like gauntlet, uh, you have to enter like get, I, you know, whatever the

[00:32:51] item is, you get the flask and then use the flask.

[00:32:55] So it's requiring a little more of you than just, um, moving and shooting.

[00:33:00] Right.

[00:33:01] Right.

[00:33:01] Um, it, it, it also looks kind of a little bit like text adventure because I saw the

[00:33:05] text was being entered.

[00:33:06] It kind of looked like it was being typed out.

[00:33:08] Um, that is pretty big passages too.

[00:33:11] I, I'm trying to think, I, I know I could read when I was playing it, but I don't think

[00:33:17] I can like the, the wall of text was too much when I was a little, I was like, I don't, I

[00:33:22] don't think I was paying attention.

[00:33:24] Um, I was like, I just want to go shoot the guys with my missile launcher.

[00:33:27] You know?

[00:33:30] Yeah, no, I get it.

[00:33:32] Um, it's very impressive.

[00:33:34] That is a very, very impressive game.

[00:33:35] Um, I, I saw a lot of like things that I've seen in other games, you know, well, it does

[00:33:42] have like a Pac-Man segment in it where you're-

[00:33:45] There's a Pac-Man level.

[00:33:46] Yeah.

[00:33:46] It's, it's, it's great.

[00:33:48] Um, so yeah, the, the biggest thing about the game isn't even to do with the game.

[00:33:53] Uh, I, I played that game a lot and I played a lot of other stuff too, but then, um, my

[00:34:00] parents rented, um, Terry Gilliam's, uh, Time Bandits, the movie.

[00:34:05] Yeah.

[00:34:06] And so I was so excited because I thought, oh, I, I have, um, uh, Black Cauldron game.

[00:34:14] So I know that's an adaptation of the little cartoon.

[00:34:19] Right.

[00:34:19] So this has to be an adaptation of this movie, or maybe they based the movie off this game.

[00:34:24] And so I was expecting like, oh, they're going to go to the pyramids and they're going to

[00:34:28] get picked up by alien.

[00:34:29] You know, it's like, that just didn't happen.

[00:34:31] I love that movie, but I was disappointed because I thought it was going to be about this

[00:34:35] game.

[00:34:37] That's pretty good.

[00:34:38] That's very funny.

[00:34:39] I was like, where's his rocket launcher?

[00:34:41] This is great.

[00:34:45] That's great.

[00:34:46] I have never seen that movie either.

[00:34:48] And there's just a whole bunch of first time band.

[00:34:52] Yeah.

[00:34:52] Movie.

[00:34:53] Yeah.

[00:34:53] Watch that.

[00:34:54] That's fun.

[00:34:54] That's a good movie.

[00:34:56] It's 81.

[00:34:58] Uh, okay.

[00:35:00] Huh?

[00:35:01] Probably.

[00:35:01] I'm going to ask my, my mother-in-law about it.

[00:35:03] She's probably going to know about it.

[00:35:05] Apparently last night they decided to sit down with, uh, my brother-in-law's girlfriend

[00:35:11] and just start asking me what, asking her what movie she hadn't seen.

[00:35:15] And apparently she hasn't seen a bunch of stuff that I've also haven't seen, but I will

[00:35:18] never say it because they'll force me to watch it.

[00:35:20] And I don't want to watch, I don't want to watch Pretty Woman or, or Sabrina or, or whatever

[00:35:27] the hell, all those movies they were watching.

[00:35:29] There's like time to sit down and watch, uh, Love Actually.

[00:35:33] Right?

[00:35:34] Like you've got mail.

[00:35:36] Yeah.

[00:35:37] I'm good.

[00:35:37] It's rom-com weekend.

[00:35:39] Let's do it.

[00:35:40] No, no.

[00:35:41] The only, the only rom-com that I want to watch is, is Scott Pilgrim.

[00:35:45] And it's not even a rom-com.

[00:35:47] It's a story about a guy being a shit bag.

[00:35:49] Yeah.

[00:35:50] Nobody's good at that movie.

[00:35:52] Right?

[00:35:53] Everybody's awful.

[00:35:55] Yeah.

[00:35:56] Um, yeah, no, uh, you know, the, the thing that, that, uh, blew me away so, so far from,

[00:36:03] uh, Foss Anadu is that it's pinned off into the, the Trails Into games.

[00:36:11] Uh, like Trails Into Asher, uh, Trails of Cold Steel, uh, all those games.

[00:36:18] And then it also spun off into a, I don't even know how to say like a quote unquote Sanadu

[00:36:26] series.

[00:36:27] Because I asked you, it's like, oh, is it related to Tokyo Sanadu?

[00:36:30] And like, you knew, you said.

[00:36:32] I was like, I don't know.

[00:36:33] Yeah.

[00:36:33] Apparently it is.

[00:36:37] So that's weird.

[00:36:38] Oh no, it is.

[00:36:40] So it's crazy that it's been around for so long that this, this set of series started

[00:36:46] off.

[00:36:47] Yeah.

[00:36:48] As this little like side scroller adventure RPG.

[00:36:53] Um, and, and then now it's still around with all of these games that are niche because,

[00:37:01] you know, only massive nerds like me play them.

[00:37:04] They're not, yeah, they're not games that are moving a lot of copies.

[00:37:07] That's for sure.

[00:37:08] No.

[00:37:08] But the thing is, like, I don't know if you've, you've kept up with it, but every time a

[00:37:14] trails games come out or an ease games comes out, you have to buy it immediately if you

[00:37:19] want to play it eventually.

[00:37:20] Yeah.

[00:37:21] Because they do.

[00:37:22] Yeah.

[00:37:22] They make short runs and when they're gone, they're gone and then resell.

[00:37:26] They're expensive as hell.

[00:37:28] Yeah.

[00:37:29] The one benefit is, uh, the, the more recent games have been, uh, like on the digital storefront,

[00:37:35] um, for quite a few of them.

[00:37:37] So unless you're looking for like a collector's edition, um, with some, they might do some

[00:37:41] pack-ins or something, but, um, you can get them at like exorbitant regular launch game

[00:37:49] prices because they very seldom go on sale.

[00:37:52] No, here's your 30% off sale.

[00:37:54] Oh, I needed it to be a little cheaper.

[00:37:57] It's 60 bucks.

[00:37:58] Yeah.

[00:37:58] You know?

[00:37:59] Yeah.

[00:38:00] Because I, um, I played, uh, Trails of Cold Steel, uh, first one.

[00:38:09] Um, and I loved it and I wanted to play the rest and I was like, oh no, the buy-in on

[00:38:13] these is expansive.

[00:38:14] I don't have, I don't have that kind of cash.

[00:38:16] A couple hundred dollars just to get the rest of the series.

[00:38:20] Uh, and they keep, um, they're not rebooting it, but they do like little trilogies where

[00:38:24] it's like, here's a three, three, three games and that's one story.

[00:38:28] And then the next three games might be a prologue to that.

[00:38:31] It's related or has some side characters, but it's their own next like version of the story.

[00:38:37] Right.

[00:38:37] I think Trails of Azure is the new one.

[00:38:42] Uh, Trails to, from, from or to zero and then Asher's the sequel to it.

[00:38:48] Yeah.

[00:38:48] Yeah.

[00:38:49] It gets convoluted if you don't like get them as they release.

[00:38:52] And then you see that all of these characters from the Asher games are like on the main

[00:38:57] series, but you have no idea how they got there.

[00:39:00] So you have to.

[00:39:02] I know it's a, it's a, it's a big ask.

[00:39:04] I think if you, um, you can spend your whole time and like, that's your, uh, game series

[00:39:11] you play.

[00:39:11] That's the things you do is play these games.

[00:39:14] Like you can forge an identity around just, just keeping track of what's going on here

[00:39:18] with those ones.

[00:39:20] Right.

[00:39:21] I, I bought, what was it?

[00:39:23] Three.

[00:39:25] And then I saw that four came out and I bought four of the cold steel series.

[00:39:30] And I was like, oh, let me see if I can find one and two.

[00:39:33] And I had to buy one digital because it's like a hundred and something dollars now.

[00:39:38] Yeah.

[00:39:38] And I managed to get a copy of two from GameStop and the box came all destroyed.

[00:39:43] So I have, I have the box sitting somewhere and I have just the game case on the shelf.

[00:39:48] And like, why, why are these so, so expensive?

[00:39:53] And the retro game store back in Orlando, whenever one comes in, like you have to call and tell

[00:40:00] them, hold a copy because it's next to full sale.

[00:40:03] So it's just packed with nerds.

[00:40:05] So when you go and one of these niche games comes out, they don't last because you know,

[00:40:10] all the full sale kids go in and grab them and just, it's insane.

[00:40:15] It's fucking game.

[00:40:16] Yeah.

[00:40:17] And it's crazy.

[00:40:18] It's become such a, a mainstream thing to, to play video games that so many people are

[00:40:29] into it.

[00:40:29] So you can always find someone that you can have like a niche game that you like.

[00:40:32] Um, maybe you like to play like weird little games, uh, like Mr. Mosquito or, uh, guitar

[00:40:41] room man.

[00:40:42] Like there's just some strange games that, especially PS2.

[00:40:46] That was, that was the time period.

[00:40:47] If you wanted to play it like a funky game, cause they were just throwing everything out

[00:40:51] there, you know, a lot of B and C tier titles, but they were like fun.

[00:40:55] Cause they were weird.

[00:40:56] Yeah.

[00:40:57] Yeah.

[00:40:57] And now that you say that, that everybody kind of like has a niche, um, back in the,

[00:41:06] from like the, the super Nintendo till probably when the switch release, like there were very

[00:41:14] little farming simulators.

[00:41:16] And now that's the only thing you can find because people found out that they liked that stuff.

[00:41:22] So now everybody wants to have like a farming simulator, a slice of life game.

[00:41:27] And they sell like crazy.

[00:41:29] Oh, they do.

[00:41:30] It's like, I need my song of season seven.

[00:41:32] And, you know, right.

[00:41:35] Right.

[00:41:36] Like my, I'm on my like 40th year on Stardew Valley.

[00:41:40] I wonder what my children are doing right now.

[00:41:43] Yeah.

[00:41:43] Uh, yeah, those, um, that's, I guess I can say that that's one genre.

[00:41:48] I really, I tried it.

[00:41:50] I tried animal crossing and a couple, like, that's not my, that's not my bag.

[00:41:55] I, I, I can appreciate like, there is a audience for this very specifically.

[00:42:00] Um, it's, that's not me.

[00:42:02] Uh, there, I, I always liked the, the idea of it, like the idyllic, like, Oh, that seems

[00:42:09] fun, like a good distraction.

[00:42:11] But my time to play games is like, as I've in the last, I don't know, decade or so it's

[00:42:19] gotten smaller, um, for sure.

[00:42:22] And so I have to, I feel like I have to like play something quality or something that like,

[00:42:29] um, I feel like I'm doing something progressive with it versus like, Oh, I don't need a time

[00:42:36] waster.

[00:42:36] I don't, I don't, I don't have time to waste.

[00:42:38] So I don't need a game where it's like, Oh, uh, do a base building game.

[00:42:43] I, I got into the, um, Conan exiles game and I really enjoyed it.

[00:42:49] But then I was like, there's no, there's a, I don't know, three NPCs and a couple of

[00:42:54] dungeons.

[00:42:54] It's just about you building like a cool tree house and that's great.

[00:42:58] But like, it takes forever to get the pieces and I want to go do Conan stuff.

[00:43:04] Right.

[00:43:06] So that kind of game is like, it's not for like, um, what is it?

[00:43:10] Um, uh, uh, pocket pal, whatever the game that just came out.

[00:43:16] I think it's pocket pal, something like that.

[00:43:19] Pal world.

[00:43:20] Yeah.

[00:43:21] Pal world.

[00:43:22] Yes.

[00:43:22] Yeah.

[00:43:23] And it's like, Oh, it's a base building.

[00:43:25] Oh, okay.

[00:43:25] Nevermind.

[00:43:26] I don't have time for that.

[00:43:27] You know, see that, that one like has two things that I, I am very uninterested in.

[00:43:35] Um, one, because it's mostly make your own fun when you have to like build a game.

[00:43:39] Build your own base and set up production lines.

[00:43:43] I, I, I, I don't want to make my own fun.

[00:43:46] Um, and the other one is creature collecting.

[00:43:49] Like I can play a Pokemon or a Digimon or whatever and have fun with it.

[00:43:53] But when the game is like, okay, it's time to get sweaty and actually deep dive in, dive

[00:43:59] deep into, uh, getting these monsters the way that you need to so that you can be the number

[00:44:04] one in the, in the world.

[00:44:05] I'm like, no, I'm good.

[00:44:07] That I had my fun.

[00:44:08] I don't, I don't need to go any further.

[00:44:11] Um, and, and pal world is, is that game that I'm never going to touch because I don't, I

[00:44:17] don't want it.

[00:44:19] Yeah.

[00:44:19] We, we took a look at it for a few minutes and we're like, yeah, this is not, uh, this

[00:44:23] isn't what the trailer was like promising.

[00:44:26] This is something else.

[00:44:27] Um, this looks like arc or any of the other handful of building games.

[00:44:32] I tried my hand at some survival ones.

[00:44:35] There's a couple of cool ideas that, um, well, I don't know the name of it.

[00:44:41] It's the ocean.

[00:44:42] You're in the ocean.

[00:44:44] Uh, subnautica.

[00:44:45] Yeah.

[00:44:46] Subnautica.

[00:44:47] And, um, I had some fun with that, but like, then I got scared.

[00:44:51] Like I didn't want to dive into the water where I couldn't see.

[00:44:54] I was like, ah, there's gotta be some kind of weird shark down there.

[00:44:56] I don't, or octopus.

[00:44:57] Right.

[00:44:58] It's too spooky.

[00:44:59] I'm, I'm checking out.

[00:45:00] I, there's no, I don't have a weapon and I have a flashlight.

[00:45:03] This isn't, you know, no, no.

[00:45:06] See that, that's another type of games that I don't like.

[00:45:08] Um, uh, whenever it's a horror game and you don't have any weapons, it's just,

[00:45:12] hide as your weapon.

[00:45:14] Yeah.

[00:45:15] I, I, I, I can't, I did play Soma, but I chose to have like the monsters not be able

[00:45:20] to hurt you.

[00:45:21] And I did enjoy it that way, but yeah.

[00:45:24] Hide and wait for the monster to go away.

[00:45:26] That's another one.

[00:45:27] Yeah.

[00:45:27] Yeah.

[00:45:27] The amnesia series, not my thing or outlast.

[00:45:30] I'm like, I don't like, I don't mind watching someone play them, but it's like, I could spend

[00:45:35] my time doing something else that I do like instead.

[00:45:38] Right.

[00:45:39] Yeah.

[00:45:41] They're like, they're okay.

[00:45:44] I, part of the problem is that I like playing, uh, horror games and I want to feel like I'm

[00:45:48] the scariest thing in the room.

[00:45:50] Yeah.

[00:45:50] So like resident evil four, you know, I'm, I'm the thing that the villagers should be

[00:45:55] afraid of or dead.

[00:45:56] Yeah.

[00:45:57] Let me be the monster.

[00:45:58] Right.

[00:45:59] That, that's what I want.

[00:46:00] So when I have that mentality and I'm going into a place where I don't have any weapons

[00:46:05] or, you know, I can't throw punches or anything and the monster's chasing me the entire time.

[00:46:09] I don't like that.

[00:46:11] Yeah.

[00:46:11] Yeah.

[00:46:12] I, um, I wanted to do, uh, I picked up the Friday the 13th game and I think dead by daylight

[00:46:19] and a few other ones where you, you got to be the monster, but I don't, I don't care to

[00:46:24] play games with people like very often.

[00:46:26] Like I'll do couch co-op stuff, but like I have to get, I don't have time to go.

[00:46:31] I got to get a team together of like four other friends or, or put with random people

[00:46:36] that I don't know.

[00:46:37] I'm like, nah, that's not, I don't want to have to turn a mic on.

[00:46:40] I just want to, this is my like relaxed time.

[00:46:43] Not, oh, I have to do social stuff.

[00:46:47] No, it's not me.

[00:46:49] Um, and so I was disappointed when those games like, oh, I get to be Jason.

[00:46:53] Like, can't I just, just give me like AI campers that I will, uh, track down.

[00:46:59] Like, dude, let me have that.

[00:47:01] Right.

[00:47:02] Yeah.

[00:47:02] No, I, I, man, that resonates because, uh, you know, fallout 76, right?

[00:47:08] Yeah.

[00:47:08] Yeah.

[00:47:09] They made it so that if you want to play the game by yourself, you have to buy your own

[00:47:13] server and why not just make an offline mode?

[00:47:16] I just want to explore the world because I love fallout and I want to explore, you know,

[00:47:22] West Virginia, but not with other people.

[00:47:24] I want to do it on my own.

[00:47:26] So yeah, I, I get it.

[00:47:28] I, I picked that up at launch and I was having a blast with it.

[00:47:31] And then it just got to like, oh, I don't want to see other people.

[00:47:35] Like stop touching my camp.

[00:47:36] Like leave myself alone.

[00:47:37] I'm just, I already have to deal with these mutants out here and the, and the radiation.

[00:47:42] Like, I don't want to deal with like scavengers that are people.

[00:47:46] Right.

[00:47:47] Like the, the thing that, that broke me that I was like, okay, I'm done was I was running

[00:47:53] around.

[00:47:53] I think I was like level five and this level two came up to me and he starts punching me.

[00:47:58] So I started punching him back.

[00:48:01] And then this level 76 pops up with like one of those hydraulic arms just punches me like

[00:48:07] across the field.

[00:48:09] It was like, yeah, I'm done.

[00:48:11] That's like, I wasn't grieving him.

[00:48:12] He was fighting me.

[00:48:13] Right.

[00:48:14] I like, there's some other dude just, I think they were playing together.

[00:48:19] Just like completely.

[00:48:22] I turned on the fan by accident.

[00:48:24] I wonder what the hell was going on.

[00:48:25] Why are my feet cold?

[00:48:28] Yeah.

[00:48:28] Just that.

[00:48:29] Like, no, I don't want this.

[00:48:31] This is not what I want from fallout.

[00:48:33] Mm-hmm.

[00:48:33] Oh, oh.

[00:48:35] It's games, man.

[00:48:37] Yeah.

[00:48:37] Yeah.

[00:48:39] Yeah.

[00:48:42] Okay.

[00:48:43] So we're still doing good.

[00:48:44] I was checking to see how we were on time.

[00:48:47] Yeah.

[00:48:47] I'm watching the clock too.

[00:48:49] Yeah.

[00:48:50] But yeah, no.

[00:48:52] So is that like the only type of game that you're not a big fan of?

[00:48:56] Are there other kinds of games that you're like, no, from a mile away?

[00:49:01] Uh, so I, I enjoy playing fighting games, but I only want to play the piece.

[00:49:06] I don't want to do competitive like, oh, leaderboards and, and go battle people like,

[00:49:12] no, there's lag.

[00:49:13] I don't know.

[00:49:14] Again, I enjoyed those back in the day when we, you had couch co-op and even split screen.

[00:49:21] And that just kind of went away.

[00:49:23] Um, and as I, I got older and moved around and stuff, I just didn't have anyone around

[00:49:29] that I was playing couch co-op games with.

[00:49:32] Um, I do play a few games on the switch with my wife.

[00:49:35] Um, we played the, uh, the just dance.

[00:49:41] Yeah.

[00:49:42] Uh, the just dance games.

[00:49:43] That's a lot of fun.

[00:49:44] Um, get to move around a little bit and have some fun little pop songs.

[00:49:47] Uh, and we played through, um, bubble bubble.

[00:49:54] Uh, we tried to do, there's a Sonic adventure game on the switch.

[00:49:58] That's like two players, but you're one person just stuck his tails.

[00:50:03] I might've been, and you keep getting screen dragged.

[00:50:07] It's like that ended up, the idea was cool, but it just didn't work out in practice.

[00:50:10] Um, the, oh, the, uh, the latest Kirby game is a lot of fun.

[00:50:18] And one of you gets to be like a little waddle D and you're just zooming around and Kirby's

[00:50:23] absorbing weirdos and eating, becoming car B it's that's just great.

[00:50:29] I love that stuff.

[00:50:31] Um, I, I was going to say, have you guys tried a castle crashers?

[00:50:35] Uh, yeah, we've played that.

[00:50:37] Uh, we've, we've done a few, like, let's not land party, but just, um, some folks together

[00:50:43] and did, uh, um, I think we put, yeah, we played castle crashers and, um, what is the

[00:50:53] left for dead?

[00:50:54] Yeah.

[00:50:55] So stuff like that, um, with like four people, you know, I don't mind that kind of game.

[00:51:01] If you're like a team working together to do a thing, I don't want to do, uh, antagonist

[00:51:07] games.

[00:51:08] Oh, um, I will say, yeah.

[00:51:10] So one of the games that my wife and I were playing when we were starting to date, um,

[00:51:17] we were playing sniper elite.

[00:51:20] And so that one, because we were in different States and so we could play that cooperatively

[00:51:25] and then, um, you know, you're trying to take down Hitler.

[00:51:28] And so that, that was a lot of fun and just, just the different play styles we had where

[00:51:34] I would, I was like, it's a sniper game.

[00:51:37] I'm going to sit up here on this tower and then try to snipe people.

[00:51:39] And then she's just running around throwing grenades and causing chaos out in the thing.

[00:51:45] And I'm like, what are you doing?

[00:51:46] You're, you're, you're alerting all the guys.

[00:51:47] And she's like, aha, no, they're here.

[00:51:49] I'm going to get them all.

[00:51:50] I have a, like a little knife.

[00:51:52] I'm going to stab them.

[00:51:53] It's just like, okay, way different play styles.

[00:51:56] I didn't, uh, didn't anticipate this.

[00:51:58] You know, it's funny because I thought that was exactly how that was going to go.

[00:52:02] And that's exactly how it went.

[00:52:04] You're trying to be tactical and she's just throwing grenades everywhere.

[00:52:07] Yeah.

[00:52:08] Yeah.

[00:52:09] That's, uh, that's, that's how, that's how all the interactions go when we're, when we're

[00:52:13] doing stuff.

[00:52:14] I'm going to go in full bore and just destroy it.

[00:52:16] I'm like, I'm, I want to be over here.

[00:52:18] I'm going to throw some magic, you know, or whatever it is.

[00:52:21] I'm a long range.

[00:52:22] I don't want to actually be in the conflict.

[00:52:24] I'll, I'll support.

[00:52:24] I'll support.

[00:52:25] I'll do the support role.

[00:52:26] Let me heal you.

[00:52:28] That's so funny.

[00:52:30] So, um, so you guys, you guys play co-op.

[00:52:33] Now you said that you played fighting games.

[00:52:35] Well, what was your favorite fighting game growing up?

[00:52:38] Wow.

[00:52:38] Um, I, I played street fighter a little bit, uh, two.

[00:52:42] I didn't play the first one.

[00:52:43] Um, I played street fighter two and then I, I got into mortal combat, um, one through

[00:52:51] three.

[00:52:51] Cause I would, I had, I think I had them all in the Genesis.

[00:52:55] Um, but, uh, my mom would like, we'd go to the mall and she would just drop me off at

[00:53:01] the arcade with a roll of quarters or whatever.

[00:53:03] And so I would play, um, mortal combat in the arcade.

[00:53:07] And, uh, um, I liked to play the weird, we'd, uh, like my parents would go bowling and

[00:53:15] I was, I was little, I was like, I can't even think I can lift the bowling ball, but

[00:53:18] I can play these like 1942.

[00:53:20] And, um, uh, this other, the bowling arcades had like three games usually.

[00:53:29] And they had the, um, uh, SNK cab where you could like pick like five or six different

[00:53:38] games on there, um, and play those.

[00:53:40] So there was just like weird, like samurai warrior and just all like the off brand brand

[00:53:45] games.

[00:53:46] Like they're like, this isn't, um, street fighter.

[00:53:49] This is world heroes or world warrior fire or something like that.

[00:53:55] Yeah.

[00:53:56] Yeah.

[00:53:56] I did love, I like side scroller beat them ups.

[00:53:59] So double dragon and, um, that kind of game too.

[00:54:03] Uh, I, I got into guilty gear a little bit.

[00:54:07] Um, I had that on my, uh, PSP because that, that was, um, the PSP wasn't region locked.

[00:54:16] So our, there was a local, um, uh, big electronic store and they, for some reason had a bunch of

[00:54:24] import games.

[00:54:25] I don't know why it was, they just had them and they were like a few dollars more than the

[00:54:30] regular ones.

[00:54:31] Oh, so I just, um, when I had the PSP, I was taking Japanese, uh, in college.

[00:54:37] So I could kind of, I could read the menus at least and I could just fumble my way through.

[00:54:43] And plus if it's a fighting game, I didn't really need to write like, there's not a story

[00:54:46] or something I have to mess with.

[00:54:47] I just need to know what punch and kick is and whatever your super counter and, uh, the

[00:54:52] mega move.

[00:54:53] Um, so the guilty gear stuff was great just cause the, the creator that's like, I love

[00:54:58] weird American rock and heavy metal stuff.

[00:55:02] And I'm going to make the characters these little weirdos, you know?

[00:55:05] Right.

[00:55:06] Like I'm going to have the, the, the series poster boy be, uh, uh, Freddie Mercury and

[00:55:11] yeah.

[00:55:12] And his nemesis is going to love Metallica.

[00:55:15] Yeah.

[00:55:16] It's great.

[00:55:16] It's, it's so, it's so goofy.

[00:55:19] Um, yeah, I love those.

[00:55:21] I played killer instinct a bit, but you know, I, I did play killer instinct growing up on

[00:55:28] the 64.

[00:55:29] I never figured it, figured it out until I played it on the Xbox and I'm like, Oh, you

[00:55:34] were supposed to just press every button at the same time.

[00:55:37] They just really wanted you to juggle and do combos.

[00:55:40] Just hitting them.

[00:55:41] Um, uh, Oh, uh, clay fighters, clay fighters was fun.

[00:55:47] Oh God.

[00:55:48] That's a little weird game.

[00:55:49] Yeah.

[00:55:49] It's very weird game.

[00:55:50] I kind of problematic nowadays, but yeah.

[00:55:53] Well, it's the same thing with, um, uh, what was the, the dinosaur one?

[00:55:57] Primal Fury.

[00:55:59] It's like, I remember getting that.

[00:56:00] My mom's like, are you peeing on that guy?

[00:56:02] I'm like, no, that's, that's not pee or whatever.

[00:56:07] I think, uh, yeah.

[00:56:10] Cause I, my, when I got the Sega, um, my first games, I, uh, my parents picked me up.

[00:56:17] I talked them into getting, uh, Mortal Kombat, um, Primal Fury and Robocop versus Terminator

[00:56:24] and Robocop versus Terminator is very bloody.

[00:56:27] Like everyone you shoot explodes into like a fountain of blood.

[00:56:32] I'm like, mom, but it's the, it's the Terminator and Robocop.

[00:56:35] I love those movies.

[00:56:36] We love them.

[00:56:37] We've watched them so much.

[00:56:39] What was, what's the difference between seeing that guy blow up on the windshield of, of,

[00:56:43] you know, uh, what, what's his name?

[00:56:47] Red Foreman's car instead of, uh, uh.

[00:56:49] Oh yeah.

[00:56:50] Road Decker.

[00:56:51] Right.

[00:56:52] Yeah.

[00:56:53] Oh, he's a, he's a mutant sludge guy.

[00:56:56] Right.

[00:56:57] Yeah.

[00:56:57] Oh, did you, um, have you played the new one?

[00:57:00] The, uh.

[00:57:01] Yes.

[00:57:02] Is it, is it good?

[00:57:03] Okay.

[00:57:04] All right.

[00:57:04] All right.

[00:57:04] So this is what I told everybody that's asked me about it.

[00:57:09] It's a, the best way to go into it.

[00:57:13] It's think like fallout new Vegas ish, but Robocop and janky because it has a lot.

[00:57:21] I like a little bit of janky though.

[00:57:23] No, it's, it's fantastic.

[00:57:25] I gave the game like an 8.5 out of 10 after playing it and it's like 25 hours long to do

[00:57:30] everything.

[00:57:31] And it is a ton of fun.

[00:57:33] The shooting is fantastic.

[00:57:35] It has the, that weird humor that Robocop has.

[00:57:40] Um, the voice acting is very good.

[00:57:43] Actually, I wasn't expecting the voice acting to be that good.

[00:57:46] It's kind of like the best budget title based on a property you're going to find.

[00:57:51] It's, it's very, very good.

[00:57:54] The only thing I wish was better was the walking because you're Robocop.

[00:57:57] It's like slow.

[00:57:59] Yeah.

[00:57:59] He doesn't run.

[00:58:01] Right.

[00:58:01] And when you run, he just like walks a little bit faster.

[00:58:04] Yeah.

[00:58:05] That's, that's like the only thing.

[00:58:07] He walks with intention.

[00:58:08] Right.

[00:58:09] Uh, oh, my wife was like, cause my TV is like right across from me.

[00:58:13] Right.

[00:58:13] So it's like there and my wife's desk is there right next to the TV.

[00:58:17] And I was playing Robocop while she was trying to work.

[00:58:20] And she's like, can you turn that fucking volume on off?

[00:58:22] Because every step you hear Robocop, like stomping.

[00:58:26] Doom.

[00:58:27] Doom.

[00:58:27] Doom.

[00:58:28] Right.

[00:58:29] Okay.

[00:58:29] Yeah.

[00:58:30] For the entire game.

[00:58:31] And I absolutely loved it.

[00:58:33] I think I beat it on like a weekend.

[00:58:34] It's a very, very fun game.

[00:58:36] Okay.

[00:58:37] Yeah.

[00:58:37] The, I would say that if you, I've heard a couple of the podcast guys talking about it

[00:58:43] and they, uh, it was like 50, 50, like they kind of, some of them didn't like it, but what

[00:58:49] I wanted to hear was that everyone said, oh, this feels like a continuation of like a movie.

[00:58:54] You're like, you're playing more Robocop.

[00:58:56] And like, that's what I, yeah, that sounds great.

[00:58:58] Okay.

[00:58:58] So I, I growing up, I had seen bits and pieces of Robocop.

[00:59:04] I had never actually like sat down and watched any of the movies.

[00:59:08] And I, I had a blast with this game and after I finished it, credits rolled, I went on to

[00:59:16] prime and rented the first movie to watch it.

[00:59:19] Cause I had never seen it.

[00:59:20] Oh.

[00:59:21] And, and then I started seeing like a bunch of things in the movie.

[00:59:24] I'm like, holy shit.

[00:59:25] They like brought a bunch of these little threads from the movie and like expanded them in the

[00:59:34] game.

[00:59:34] Like they just made them, uh, like a whole thing.

[00:59:38] Like, uh, they, they explored more into what's going on.

[00:59:42] And, uh, I, if I think I saw that Robocop three, one of the major characters dies.

[00:59:50] So if this game is canon, it's before three.

[00:59:54] Yeah.

[00:59:55] I think it's between two and three is what I'd heard.

[00:59:57] Um, did you watch two yet?

[01:00:00] Not yet.

[01:00:01] I'm going to watch two.

[01:00:02] That's, that's my favorite.

[01:00:03] I like the first one maybe better, but two just has a good villain.

[01:00:08] Um, you can skip three.

[01:00:10] I would, I feel like that's one that you could just, it didn't need to exist.

[01:00:15] Um, and the TV show is not great either, but I did watch it.

[01:00:19] Yeah.

[01:00:20] I saw the TV show too.

[01:00:21] Yeah.

[01:00:22] Yeah.

[01:00:22] Um, I just think about one is that the dad from 70 show is the bad guy.

[01:00:28] And I just think that's the funniest shit.

[01:00:31] Yeah.

[01:00:31] And he's so menacing.

[01:00:32] You're like, oh, he's going to kill some fools.

[01:00:36] Right.

[01:00:37] And I'm like, I can't take him seriously, but he's actually killing people.

[01:00:40] Yeah.

[01:00:41] Now he's frightening there.

[01:00:42] Cause I, you know, you grew up, I grew up watching Robocop.

[01:00:45] So then that 70 show come on.

[01:00:46] I'm like, wait, huh?

[01:00:48] That's like, oh no.

[01:00:50] He's going to kill somebody.

[01:00:52] He's going to kill Kelso.

[01:00:55] He's threatening, but he's going to do it.

[01:00:56] I know it.

[01:00:57] Right.

[01:00:58] Yeah.

[01:00:59] But yeah, no, if you can, if you can get the game for like 40 bucks, I would say pull

[01:01:04] the trigger.

[01:01:04] It's, it's, it's worth it.

[01:01:06] It's a lot.

[01:01:06] Yeah.

[01:01:07] That's like, it's weird.

[01:01:08] So they keep, um, I have that on my wishlist on the PS five and they'll do sales on like

[01:01:14] the, um, the Murphy edition where it's like the more complete edition, but will be cheaper

[01:01:19] than just like the base game.

[01:01:20] So I'll eventually pick it up.

[01:01:23] Um, I guess, unfortunately or fortunately, um, I'm trying to not buy it.

[01:01:28] I don't buy anything right now because, uh, dragon's dogma two comes out next month and

[01:01:33] I've set aside.

[01:01:34] I want, I want the full deluxe edition.

[01:01:36] That's 80 bucks.

[01:01:37] So I'm like, okay, just don't get anything.

[01:01:39] I set aside my little pennies.

[01:01:42] Um, I love, love, love, love dragon's dogma.

[01:01:45] I, I really liked the first one.

[01:01:47] I remember hearing about it and not really paying attention to it, but then we did a midnight

[01:01:54] event when it released and we have like trivia questions for the audience and whatever.

[01:02:02] And they were talking about, I'm like, holy shit, this game sounds awesome.

[01:02:06] Like the whole pond system and whatever.

[01:02:08] So I just bought a copy right there on, um, at the midnight release and really, really

[01:02:13] enjoyed it.

[01:02:15] Um, that that's one that I've been wanting to give another playthrough, but I think I'll

[01:02:18] just do dogma two when it comes out.

[01:02:21] Yeah.

[01:02:21] It's, it, um, I tried to like, you know, I didn't fully media black out myself, but I

[01:02:27] watched a little bit of the, excuse me, launch trailers.

[01:02:30] Uh, and then it's like, okay, I don't want to watch any more gameplay.

[01:02:33] I don't want to see, I just want to be like immersed in it when it comes out.

[01:02:37] Right.

[01:02:37] Um, I just, I like, I want to climb on the monsters.

[01:02:41] Like, that's like my favorite part.

[01:02:42] Climb on the dragon.

[01:02:44] Right.

[01:02:45] It's like, climb on the cyclops, stab them in the eye.

[01:02:47] Yeah.

[01:02:48] Pull his helmet off.

[01:02:49] This is great.

[01:02:50] You know, or, or, you know, poke him in the head till he gets mad and knocks his own

[01:02:53] helmet off.

[01:02:54] It's that, that it gives you all that options and that you can play any of the classes.

[01:03:00] And I could, I just want to heal my pawns and have them do all the damage, you know?

[01:03:05] Right.

[01:03:05] Um, that's, it's a lot of fun.

[01:03:07] And just the personality of everyone is goofy, um, while still taking itself seriously.

[01:03:14] Uh, I loved the little quests.

[01:03:16] Um, I think it was, I think it's Meredith.

[01:03:21] She's a little shopkeeper lady, um, that just runs it.

[01:03:24] She's like a merchant and runs around with her, all of her store on her back until you

[01:03:28] can like find her a store.

[01:03:30] Um, in the first one, it's just like the fun little stuff, the blacksmith.

[01:03:33] And he's just like, master books all.

[01:03:36] And every, there's little sound bites on everything.

[01:03:40] Man.

[01:03:40] That, that, that's such an underrated series.

[01:03:42] I am, I know Will from, uh, Friday night game cast is, is super excited for it.

[01:03:50] And I'm, I'm glad that, you know, the fans are getting another game because the first

[01:03:54] one there, it was kind of like lightning in a bottle.

[01:03:57] Cause I remember the, the little gaming group of friends that I had back in Puerto Rico.

[01:04:04] So they were very excited about it.

[01:04:06] And that's the only thing they talked about for months.

[01:04:08] Like they stopped playing dark souls to just play that.

[01:04:11] Yeah.

[01:04:12] I think that was a thing where, um, the fans of one or fans of the other, like they're,

[01:04:18] those are like not mutually exclusive, um, because they're doing something a little different,

[01:04:22] but you get a little more control, um, in dragon's dogma, as opposed to like other

[01:04:28] RPGs.

[01:04:28] I think you just have more verbs and stuff you can do.

[01:04:31] Right.

[01:04:32] Um, yeah, it's a, that's a really good, um, I will say I liked the franchise, the show.

[01:04:39] Did you watch it?

[01:04:40] It's not good.

[01:04:41] It's a show.

[01:04:41] Yeah.

[01:04:42] There's the Netflix, there's a Netflix show.

[01:04:44] It's like six episodes.

[01:04:47] It wasn't very long.

[01:04:49] Um, it's, I watched it cause I, I, we're going to cover it on monster to monster.

[01:04:55] Cause we, we've done Castlevania and some of the other ones.

[01:04:57] I was like, Oh, dragon's dogma.

[01:04:58] We all, all of us love the game.

[01:05:00] And then we started watching it and we're like, yeah, we're not going to, I'm not going

[01:05:03] to talk about this.

[01:05:03] This is not great.

[01:05:06] It was worth a watch, but that doesn't hold up to, there was no need to like analyze it.

[01:05:11] Right.

[01:05:11] I was like, okay, I'll just go back and play the game instead.

[01:05:14] You know, like another thing, like, like you said, it, dark souls does translate into dragon's

[01:05:20] dogma, but it also Skyrim translates into dragon's dogma too, because you know, it's, it's kind

[01:05:26] of like a harder version of Skyrim quote unquote, where you're immortal.

[01:05:32] So I, yeah.

[01:05:33] Cause I like it's more curated.

[01:05:35] Yeah.

[01:05:36] So the world is the grand sis world is it's, it's pretty big.

[01:05:40] Um, but because you're with, with a few exceptions, you're relegated to walking everywhere and

[01:05:45] you have to deal with the day night cycle.

[01:05:47] Uh, you don't have a fast travel as in the way stones.

[01:05:52] And that means you really intimately like know all the towns, all the paths, all the stories

[01:06:01] you get, uh, you just feel like you're there.

[01:06:04] Whereas I don't get that feeling in Skyrim.

[01:06:07] It's too vast and there's not enough stuff.

[01:06:10] Right.

[01:06:11] Um, you know, there, there, it gets to the point where you start learning the world because

[01:06:16] I remember there were like, oh, I need to go to the spur certain cave to kill the certain

[01:06:22] monster.

[01:06:22] But on the path to the cave, there's a giant troll that I want to avoid.

[01:06:27] So I'll just go around this area because I know the troll is going to be there or the

[01:06:31] troll is going to be sleeping.

[01:06:32] So I'll be able to sneak around them.

[01:06:34] So it, it, the game, it, it, it, it makes it so that you start learning it and you start

[01:06:41] recognizing things rather easily.

[01:06:43] It's, it's a very well crafted game.

[01:06:46] You know, Capcom really, really put her all into that game.

[01:06:50] They did a very good job with that game.

[01:06:52] Yeah.

[01:06:53] That's something where I really wish they, they made an MMO, but they didn't port it to

[01:06:57] the West.

[01:06:58] Um, unfortunately it's like, it looked really fun, but it's like, oh, Japanese only.

[01:07:02] Okay.

[01:07:02] Well, you know, that happens.

[01:07:05] Right.

[01:07:06] Right.

[01:07:06] Now you were talking about guilty gear earlier and I wanted to ask you, um, aren't there

[01:07:10] two versions of guilty gear on the PSP?

[01:07:14] Wasn't there like, uh, guilty gear XX, I think.

[01:07:19] And I, yeah, there was another one.

[01:07:25] They make their names real weird.

[01:07:26] So it's hard to remember.

[01:07:27] Yeah.

[01:07:28] Cause I know there was one that was kind of like a four player fighting game where you

[01:07:38] would have to press the shoulder buttons to turn around.

[01:07:42] Oh yeah.

[01:07:43] I didn't have that.

[01:07:43] I definitely had the, just the regular, I want to say it's guilty gear XX.

[01:07:46] It's it.

[01:07:48] That's 20 years ago.

[01:07:49] So there's, uh, XX, XS core plus, uh, as one and then judgment.

[01:07:59] Okay.

[01:08:00] Judgment, I think is the, um, multiplayer one or the multiplayer more than two.

[01:08:05] It had like a, uh, what's it called?

[01:08:07] A, a side scroller beat them up mini game that, that was a lot of fun.

[01:08:13] Cause you got to play a beat them up with the controls for the character.

[01:08:17] So I would just play as Kai the entire time.

[01:08:19] Okay.

[01:08:20] Yeah.

[01:08:21] Yeah.

[01:08:21] Yeah.

[01:08:22] That, that was my main Kai, um, played, played in a long time.

[01:08:26] I tried the new one and it's good, but it, it's not the same.

[01:08:30] Yeah.

[01:08:31] I, I fell off of fighting games when it started doing more of the 3d stuff for a while.

[01:08:36] Like the, like say mortal combat.

[01:08:38] I, I didn't play, uh, I'm trying to think any of them up through 10.

[01:08:47] Uh, then, then they started doing, um, 2d again, but just like the fidelity.

[01:08:54] Yeah.

[01:08:55] And so my, my brother picked that up, but he'd been playing the other mortal combats and he

[01:08:59] was like, Oh, do check out the new mortal combat.

[01:09:02] And I was like, okay, I'll come take a look at it.

[01:09:04] And I was like, Oh, this looks great.

[01:09:05] This looks like how I remember it being rather than just like a, right.

[01:09:09] The Tekken thing.

[01:09:11] And, um, he's like, Oh yeah, I want to play.

[01:09:14] I'm like, sure.

[01:09:15] So we started playing it.

[01:09:16] I just like crushed him because the controls were the same as like the, you know, the old

[01:09:21] mortal combat.

[01:09:22] So, you know, I know these moves.

[01:09:24] Um, he's like, well, how did you do that?

[01:09:25] I'm like, well, I played a lot of Johnny cage when I was your age.

[01:09:31] That's funny.

[01:09:33] Uh, so have you played the story mode in the new games?

[01:09:36] No, I didn't.

[01:09:37] I didn't.

[01:09:38] Or did I, maybe I picked up 10.

[01:09:40] I didn't think I played it though.

[01:09:41] Um, I've heard it was really good.

[01:09:42] Like it's a, you know, a movie, like a whole story.

[01:09:45] Yeah.

[01:09:46] Um, nine is good.

[01:09:48] It kind of reboots the entire thing.

[01:09:50] Uh, 10 is a continuation with like the next generation of fighters.

[01:09:55] Yeah.

[01:09:55] And then 11 is fucking crazy.

[01:09:58] Crazy.

[01:09:59] 11 is so good.

[01:10:02] And then one is good, but 11, holy shit.

[01:10:06] 11 was insane.

[01:10:07] That, that story, they like pulled all the stops and it just kept getting crazier and crazier.

[01:10:13] Yeah.

[01:10:14] And then the DLC got even crazier.

[01:10:16] Is that where like Liu Kang becomes the, a God and resets the universe?

[01:10:21] At the end of the game.

[01:10:23] Okay.

[01:10:23] It's hard.

[01:10:24] I, yeah.

[01:10:25] Cause that's why they went and did mortal combat.

[01:10:27] Like back again.

[01:10:28] I, I didn't really keep pace with it, but I just like tangentially absorbed like what

[01:10:33] was going on.

[01:10:34] I liked the movies.

[01:10:34] Oh, the, um, the last, the latest movie was really good.

[01:10:39] I enjoyed that a lot.

[01:10:40] I, I, I know people hated it.

[01:10:42] I loved it.

[01:10:43] Even if the main character had plot armor, it was still great.

[01:10:50] Well, I just, um, so the guy that plays, uh, Sub-Zero is Joe Talism and, um, he's, uh, he did a lot of the Salat films with Iko Owaeus.

[01:11:02] So just what he was in like the raid and a few other movies and his just martial arts is like fantastic.

[01:11:08] So it was great to see him in like a Western movie too.

[01:11:12] Right.

[01:11:12] That the, the, the fight scenes in that movie were, were pretty good.

[01:11:16] I, I can't wait for the sequel.

[01:11:18] Um, I think it's, it's shooting right now.

[01:11:20] I think so.

[01:11:22] Yeah.

[01:11:22] So that, that's going to be like a day one watch for me.

[01:11:26] Cause that, cause they, they did the thing where they used like practical effects for some of the kills, like the, the one with the, the hat.

[01:11:35] Yeah.

[01:11:36] And I don't remember what her name was, but that was a practical effect.

[01:11:40] Like they actually like saw the dummy in half and sprayed blood everywhere.

[01:11:46] Um, yeah.

[01:11:47] Yeah.

[01:11:47] If you, um, get around to listening to some of our, our backlog episodes, um, that's our big, we love practical effects.

[01:11:54] I want to see a little stop motion stuff.

[01:11:57] I want to see a rubber body exploding, you know, show me, show me an actual monster.

[01:12:03] Don't show me a CG thing.

[01:12:04] Like it has its place, um, these days, but I, I want to see like a drippy gooey guy.

[01:12:11] Right.

[01:12:12] Yeah.

[01:12:12] Um, but you know that, that I, I, I'm, I'm like,

[01:12:17] a child.

[01:12:18] If it's, if there's movement and sound, I'm probably going to stare at it and watch it.

[01:12:22] Um, so I, I don't really care usually whether it's like a practical effect or CG until it gets to that uncanny valley.

[01:12:30] Marvel's doing now that looks horrific, but you know, Godzilla minus one looked so fucking good.

[01:12:37] It, it, it was all CG and it looks so, so damn good.

[01:12:42] The part where the bomb gets lost in its jaw and it blows up and then he like rebuilds.

[01:12:48] Yeah.

[01:12:49] His face.

[01:12:50] Like I, and then he wakes up.

[01:12:52] I was like, Oh shit.

[01:12:54] My wife was like, gross.

[01:12:56] It's so good.

[01:12:58] Like that.

[01:12:59] Yeah.

[01:12:59] That's a fantastic.

[01:13:00] They, um, they're, they did a limited release on it, but the director wanted to do a black

[01:13:06] and white version.

[01:13:07] So they did that.

[01:13:09] And it's, um, it's when they, when they, they didn't do a filter, they went scene by scene

[01:13:14] to like color match the black and white to like make it work for every scene.

[01:13:18] Um, so that should, I imagine beyond like the Blu-ray release, which I will definitely pick

[01:13:23] up.

[01:13:23] Did you watch, um, Shin Godzilla?

[01:13:26] I've been meaning to watch it.

[01:13:28] I haven't.

[01:13:29] Um, watch that.

[01:13:30] That's if you want to see a little freaky little, little Godzilla, that's, that's the one.

[01:13:34] He's a little weirdo.

[01:13:36] Um, I, I think the, uh, the only reason why I haven't watched it yet is because I I've

[01:13:42] seen like bits and pieces and the part where he's like running around and he's just bleeding

[01:13:47] everywhere was, uh, that, that should make my skin crawl.

[01:13:52] So that's the only reason why I haven't watched it.

[01:13:54] But then I saw the laser scene and I'm like, Oh shit, I need to watch this.

[01:13:58] He has point defense lasers.

[01:14:00] Like what?

[01:14:02] That's insane.

[01:14:02] It's so good.

[01:14:03] And the, the, the music.

[01:14:05] Um, so that's, um, Hideki Anno and he used the music from the, uh, Evangelion anime in

[01:14:13] the movie.

[01:14:14] Oh really?

[01:14:15] So all the orchestra, uh, orchestral arrangements are from, uh, Eva and it's like, it's real weird.

[01:14:20] You're like, okay, I know this music.

[01:14:21] What?

[01:14:21] He's using his own music from like an old series.

[01:14:25] That's awesome.

[01:14:26] I, I'm, I'm definitely going to need to watch that.

[01:14:28] I, uh, I just need to make time to watch movies, man.

[01:14:32] It's so hard.

[01:14:33] No, I, I know I, I can barely fit in the stuff I'm supposed to watch every week.

[01:14:38] Right.

[01:14:39] Like, but then if it's something stupid, like Rick and Morty, I'll just sit down and, and,

[01:14:45] and work down the entire thing.

[01:14:47] Like even the, the new Ted show, like I watched like the first four episodes, like one right

[01:14:51] after the other.

[01:14:52] And I haven't gone back.

[01:14:54] Oh, well, I mean, there you go.

[01:14:55] That was a movie right there.

[01:14:56] You could have fit in.

[01:14:57] Right.

[01:14:58] Right.

[01:14:58] And like Ted is not bad, but it's, it's fucking Ted.

[01:15:02] Like it doesn't add anything to my life.

[01:15:04] Yeah.

[01:15:05] Right.

[01:15:06] So, um, but it's like I sit down and I have like the PlayStation control.

[01:15:10] I'm like, do I want to play or do I want to watch him move?

[01:15:12] I'm going to play.

[01:15:13] Like, um, yeah, it, it, I get that, um, that Netflix paralysis where it's like, I have a big

[01:15:20] watch list on, on whatever, any, whatever service.

[01:15:23] And I just stare at them going, I know I want to watch a thing, but then by the time I figured

[01:15:27] out what I wanted to watch, well, I actually used up the time that I had to sit there

[01:15:31] and watch something.

[01:15:32] And I do that with the game.

[01:15:34] I'll, I'll pull up the PS five and like, look at the little media list and go like, I don't,

[01:15:38] I don't know that I want to play any of these right now.

[01:15:40] So then I'll end up just like pulling the switch and going, Oh, I'll just throw some more hours

[01:15:44] into Cosmic Hunter or something.

[01:15:46] I've been playing old games cause they, there's a few, um, uh, companies like that are putting

[01:15:54] out like really old, like, um, MSX and PC engine stuff on there.

[01:16:00] And they're like, they're fairly inexpensive.

[01:16:03] Um, and so if you, and, and they often have like save states or stuff you can do to like

[01:16:08] give it a, a few quality of life, um, pump ups.

[01:16:12] Like you kind of get with the, um, uh, the NES and NES and the Genesis, like the little

[01:16:20] Nintendo online ones.

[01:16:21] Yeah.

[01:16:22] Yeah.

[01:16:22] And there's so many games I want to play on there, but again, I have to, it's that little,

[01:16:27] like, I got to go into the screen and then I look at, Oh no, there's like 40 games on

[01:16:30] here.

[01:16:31] Which one was I going to play?

[01:16:32] I guess maybe Vector man.

[01:16:33] I don't know.

[01:16:35] Just playing Vector man all over again.

[01:16:38] Yeah.

[01:16:39] And, and it comes down to that too, where I put a lot of time, uh, just going back to

[01:16:44] like comfort games.

[01:16:46] Uh, I don't always want to play something new, so I will, I'll go, I'm going to roll

[01:16:50] another dark souls character.

[01:16:52] And then I'll just, I'm only going to play with the broken sword and, you know, just

[01:16:56] give myself something else to do to change the game up.

[01:16:58] Yeah.

[01:16:59] That, that is a big problem because I have my favorite game of all time is Star Fox 64.

[01:17:06] And sometimes it's like, what do I want to play?

[01:17:08] I don't know.

[01:17:08] Let me just play Star Fox while I make up my mind.

[01:17:11] And I do a whole run of Star Fox 64.

[01:17:13] I had a counter last year and I know it was off.

[01:17:16] I beat the game about 34 times and I know it was off because there was for like a month

[01:17:22] straight that that's the only thing that I would play.

[01:17:24] I would do a run, start another run, do another run and do another run just for like hours

[01:17:28] and hours on end.

[01:17:29] And I could, didn't keep the tally up.

[01:17:31] So I'm trying not to this year.

[01:17:33] I'm only five in so far.

[01:17:37] Hey, you got to have a little comfort game that you can just zip through and know exactly

[01:17:41] what to do.

[01:17:42] You know, all the moves and, uh, I'm just going to do, I'm just doing a barrel roll.

[01:17:47] Let's do a barrel roll.

[01:17:48] Right.

[01:17:48] So I asked my wife, what should I play?

[01:17:50] And she's like, Dragon Ball.

[01:17:51] I was like, I don't have any Dragon Ball games to play.

[01:17:52] And she starts just like naming like franchises.

[01:17:56] I'm like, I'll just play Star Fox fine.

[01:17:59] Whatever.

[01:18:03] Well, at least it's Star Fox and not like, like a time to load up Turok again.

[01:18:06] You know, it's like, okay.

[01:18:07] Oh man.

[01:18:08] I, so I bought the Turok three cause I've never played it on switch and I was playing

[01:18:16] it on handheld mode, having a great time.

[01:18:18] And then that I decided to put it on the TV and I get sick immediately.

[01:18:23] Oh no.

[01:18:24] I had to go to bed.

[01:18:26] I started playing it like at five in the afternoon and by six, I was already in bed.

[01:18:30] I couldn't do anything for the rest of the day from how bad the motion sickness was.

[01:18:34] Oh man.

[01:18:35] Yeah.

[01:18:35] I, um, I was really happy when they put a golden eye on the switch and then I started

[01:18:42] playing it and I was like, I beat the game as a kid.

[01:18:48] And I was like, what are these controls?

[01:18:50] I can't, I'm getting so mad because the control, this is the worst.

[01:18:54] And it wasn't great on the 64 controller, but at least it made a little bit of sense

[01:18:58] on the switch.

[01:18:59] It's not fun.

[01:19:00] Maybe if you have an actual controller, but not with a little, yeah.

[01:19:05] Holding it in handheld mode.

[01:19:06] I was just getting mad.

[01:19:07] I'm like, just aim at the James Bond.

[01:19:09] What are you doing?

[01:19:11] Why are you looking at the ground?

[01:19:13] This is ridiculous.

[01:19:14] See, I was playing it on the switch and I didn't want to play it on the Xbox at all.

[01:19:19] And it got to the point where I was like, I can't do this.

[01:19:21] And I turned on the Xbox and breeze through the entire game.

[01:19:24] I was like, Oh, so that's how you're supposed to play.

[01:19:26] It wasn't working.

[01:19:28] No, it wasn't.

[01:19:29] And I've thought about getting one of those, uh, 64 retro controllers that the Nintendo

[01:19:34] sells, but expensive.

[01:19:37] Yeah.

[01:19:37] I'm just going to use it for, for golden eye and star Fox.

[01:19:41] Yeah.

[01:19:41] Not worth it.

[01:19:42] I mean, there's a few games on there.

[01:19:44] Um, I think they just, they put on like pilot wings and some other ones, nothing like super

[01:19:48] great.

[01:19:49] Um, this, I, I don't remember like a, a bunch of games on the 64 that I just loved.

[01:19:55] I, I, I, I got the system and I think I just gave it to my brother.

[01:20:00] Cause I was like, I don't, uh, I'll just go play the Genesis.

[01:20:02] I don't, I'm not, I'm just not digging these games.

[01:20:05] I played some of them and I didn't care about, uh, uh, Ocarina of Time.

[01:20:10] I played it and I was like, okay, it's, I don't know.

[01:20:14] Uh, it's not my jam.

[01:20:16] I, I'll watch someone else play it and I want to get back to like something more fun.

[01:20:23] I don't know.

[01:20:24] I always find it so interesting when people say they don't, they don't like Ocarina or

[01:20:28] they don't care for it.

[01:20:29] Like, cause it, cause it's, it's Star Fox, my favorite game.

[01:20:33] Ocarina is my second favorite game of all time.

[01:20:36] But also I grew up with it, right?

[01:20:39] Like it was like brand new when I was in my format.

[01:20:42] I was like 16.

[01:20:43] So I was like, it's not, it's not for me.

[01:20:45] You know, I grew up playing the, like the OG Zelda and it just, right.

[01:20:50] Zelda two.

[01:20:51] And the feeling of those are even, um, the ones on the super Nintendo.

[01:20:55] It's like, it just felt completely different and this just wasn't doing it for me.

[01:21:01] Um, and I think some of that is like the, the learning curve of how, when they switched

[01:21:06] to that 3d, I don't know that I liked it a whole lot.

[01:21:10] It was rough.

[01:21:11] It was, it was rough.

[01:21:13] And it was like, that was the beginning of it too.

[01:21:15] So they got better obviously at it, but, uh, I enjoy even, even the 3ds version of, of

[01:21:22] Ocarina is still rough.

[01:21:24] It does have that.

[01:21:27] This is like, uh, uh, the first time we've ever done this type of thing.

[01:21:31] It still feels that way.

[01:21:32] Well, and then they like goofed up us, the skyline.

[01:21:35] I just was watching, looking at some video for it.

[01:21:37] It's like, Oh no, they, I'd rather play the original.

[01:21:40] I don't care for that one, but it still looks better.

[01:21:43] Like whatever they were doing with it, they just mucked it up.

[01:21:46] Yeah.

[01:21:46] And that, and that's, that's been the case with a few companies that have like remastered

[01:21:50] stuff and just like shot the bed.

[01:21:54] Like just did not like some silent hill ones.

[01:21:56] Like, Oh, I love silent hill.

[01:21:58] And then you get the remaster.

[01:21:58] Like this isn't even playable.

[01:21:59] Like what'd they do with the voices?

[01:22:01] This is horrendous.

[01:22:03] Like leave it alone.

[01:22:04] That's the, the, the main reason I never played silent hill because the first time I was like

[01:22:08] interested in it and I wanted to play it was when they released the collection for PS3.

[01:22:13] Oh yeah.

[01:22:15] And I didn't even put it on the PlayStation because I bought the Prince of Persia trilogy.

[01:22:21] Okay.

[01:22:22] And I played the first one and the voices sounded awful.

[01:22:26] It sounded like they were screaming through a can.

[01:22:29] I was like, if this is the same thing with silent hill, I'm done.

[01:22:32] I'm not going to touch it.

[01:22:34] I can't play a game like this.

[01:22:37] Yeah.

[01:22:38] I do like that.

[01:22:39] They're, they're bringing stuff back.

[01:22:40] Like they, they just did a remaster for the metal gear solid games, which I heard the

[01:22:44] ports just okay.

[01:22:46] I mean, if you have a steam deck, just download, you know, the PS2 versions, it has, it's basically

[01:22:56] everything.

[01:22:56] And you can play twin snakes on dolphin, which is the better version of metal gear.

[01:23:01] Solid one.

[01:23:01] And even though a lot of people hate it.

[01:23:04] Yeah.

[01:23:04] They, that, that game has its own like fan club, I think.

[01:23:08] Right.

[01:23:08] Right.

[01:23:09] Um, but if, if you, have you ever played a wind waker?

[01:23:15] Yeah, I did.

[01:23:16] I rented that.

[01:23:17] So I, I was, I didn't have to, I didn't own it.

[01:23:22] So I, I could just play it like the seven day rental.

[01:23:25] I played it for a while and then tingle showed up.

[01:23:28] And so I returned the game.

[01:23:32] That's good.

[01:23:35] Um, you know, cause usually I tell people if you hated Ocarina, try wind waker.

[01:23:40] Cause that's like the good version of the sort of sell the formula.

[01:23:44] And I did enjoy how that, that was more fun.

[01:23:47] Um, than Ocarina of time.

[01:23:49] And I skipped Majora's mask.

[01:23:51] I don't think I knew what it was.

[01:23:52] So when they marketed Majora's mask, they did the same thing that they did.

[01:23:58] I think with the Wii U and weren't making it clear that it's a separate thing.

[01:24:03] I thought Majora's mask was like an add on to a game.

[01:24:05] I didn't really like.

[01:24:06] Um, and then retrospectively just hearing about what it was doing.

[01:24:10] I was like, Oh, that's, that's a weird little thing.

[01:24:12] And maybe I, you know, did want to play that, but I just watched like a let's play.

[01:24:15] It's like, that's fine.

[01:24:17] The game is, is super strange.

[01:24:20] Yeah.

[01:24:21] Like the first thing that's strange about it is that they only had a year to make it like

[01:24:26] Ocarina's out, start working on this and then you can do whatever the fuck you want.

[01:24:29] You have a year.

[01:24:31] Yeah.

[01:24:31] So they've reused a shit ton of assets.

[01:24:33] Like all of the characters in the game.

[01:24:34] Yeah.

[01:24:34] They're just using the engine and everything.

[01:24:35] So that's a little quicker, but you know.

[01:24:38] And then the, the story, the cycle, the three day cycle, and then the dungeons and the time

[01:24:46] management and how dark the game is, because it is a very dark sell the game.

[01:24:52] It deals with a bunch of topics surrounding death and it's, it's a great game, but it's

[01:25:01] really tedious to play.

[01:25:03] I beat it for the first time on the three DS and there's a challenge in the final dungeon

[01:25:09] that I swear.

[01:25:10] I almost threw the, the three D I don't rage.

[01:25:13] I'd never rage at games.

[01:25:14] The game had me raging.

[01:25:16] Like I was sitting at a restaurant with my wife waiting for our food.

[01:25:19] I was like, it's a fucking game.

[01:25:21] And she's like, calm down.

[01:25:23] We're in public.

[01:25:24] She's like, I know I can't.

[01:25:26] But it, it, it, it's an experience.

[01:25:29] It's a, it's a, it's a game for, for lack of a better word.

[01:25:34] Yeah.

[01:25:34] It's a game.

[01:25:35] Yeah.

[01:25:36] I think I've given the, I love the idea of the Zelda games.

[01:25:41] I don't ever think I dig as much the execution of it.

[01:25:45] Um, and that's, that's like, that's on me.

[01:25:48] Like I just, I just don't jive with it, but I, I always want to.

[01:25:51] So I remember specifically, I picked up Twilight Princess and then I played it for like an hour

[01:25:55] and I'm like, this is not for me.

[01:25:57] Um, just give it to my brother.

[01:25:59] And that also has a very long intro.

[01:26:01] So I don't blame you.

[01:26:02] Cause that intro.

[01:26:03] Yeah.

[01:26:03] I just was like, okay, I'm a wolf now.

[01:26:05] I mean, that's cool.

[01:26:06] Okay.

[01:26:06] That's, this is fine.

[01:26:07] Midna's a little, little, little weird.

[01:26:09] That's okay.

[01:26:10] Um, and then I picked up because everyone was playing it.

[01:26:15] Uh, uh, the, uh, not Skyward Sword.

[01:26:19] I didn't get that one.

[01:26:20] Breath of the Wild.

[01:26:21] Breath of the Wild.

[01:26:22] Yeah.

[01:26:23] And, uh, I, I put a bunch of hours into that, but, um, that, that game, all I was doing

[01:26:29] was cooking things and then climbing stuff and gliding around.

[01:26:33] Like I wasn't advancing the story.

[01:26:35] I wasn't actually doing anything.

[01:26:37] And so I realized, okay, I brought this prime can stop playing this because I'm wasting my

[01:26:43] time.

[01:26:43] I'm just floating around.

[01:26:45] I mean, I'm having fun doing that, but I'm not going to beat the game.

[01:26:48] Like I'm not engaging with the game, uh, beyond this like superficial, oh, I don't want

[01:26:53] him to eat.

[01:26:54] I'm getting cold.

[01:26:54] Got to eat hot pepper soup, you know?

[01:26:57] Right.

[01:26:57] So I liked the mechanics of stuff and I, I had no problem with the weapon durability.

[01:27:02] They did give you tons of weapons and like, oh, I'll just throw my little stick at the

[01:27:06] moblin or something.

[01:27:08] Um, the only, the only complaint that I had about the weapon durability was that the master

[01:27:13] sword broke other than that.

[01:27:15] Like, yeah, that didn't make any sense.

[01:27:16] I felt like if you should get the one weapon that didn't have like a durability, like do it

[01:27:23] for that one and then make that end game content only or make it really behind a really hard

[01:27:28] puzzle or something.

[01:27:29] Um, they, they could have done something with that.

[01:27:31] So, um, because of that, I had no interest in, in picking up the sequel.

[01:27:35] Uh, and then it like, I, I, I had fun watching like little videos of the weird stuff people

[01:27:41] were building.

[01:27:42] Oh yeah.

[01:27:42] Like that was neat, but I was like, I don't, yeah, it's like, I don't, uh, don't need to

[01:27:46] pick up this game.

[01:27:47] This is not, I already know it's not for me.

[01:27:49] So no need to, um, you know, waste my time on that.

[01:27:52] Um, but games that are open world and then let you do like, uh, weird little quests and

[01:28:01] things.

[01:28:02] So I, uh, there's a game that's, um, uh, outward outward is a lot of fun.

[01:28:10] So that game, uh, is a game and it has, so it wanted to come out 20, 2018 or 2019.

[01:28:21] It's fairly recent sort of, I guess, in the, in the, in the scheme of things.

[01:28:25] Um, but that, that does, uh, it has multiplayer, but it also has local split screen co-op, which

[01:28:33] is, you don't normally get that.

[01:28:36] Particularly in a game, it's kind of like, um, uh, Morrowind and that sort of thing where

[01:28:41] you're just, you're just wandering around, uh, a world and you have specific quests

[01:28:47] you can go do and the, the map has like zones.

[01:28:50] Like this is the desert area and you know, this is the snow place.

[01:28:55] Um, but the vistas are all like gorgeous.

[01:29:00] And it has that same feeling like with Elden Ring where you, you can see like the, the,

[01:29:04] um, the earth tree.

[01:29:05] So there's a one weird, like this pink tree, um, that you can orient yourself with.

[01:29:10] And the whole thing is you're just, you're doing little quests, but you're just wandering

[01:29:14] around with a backpack and you can keep getting increasingly larger backpacks to put more stuff

[01:29:19] in.

[01:29:20] And that's, it's so fun.

[01:29:21] Like you're not doing, you know, you can fight monsters and stuff, but I just want a

[01:29:25] bigger backpack.

[01:29:25] Let me get the biggest backpack.

[01:29:27] And I'm just, I see something on that horizon.

[01:29:30] I want to go walk to that.

[01:29:31] Oh, look, I've found a mushroom forest.

[01:29:33] It's just, it's a charming game.

[01:29:35] And it gives me that sense of like exploration that I didn't feel like I was getting with

[01:29:40] something like the Zelda games.

[01:29:42] Right.

[01:29:43] Okay.

[01:29:44] Breath of the Wild has, you can explore, but the biome is the same.

[01:29:47] Like I want to, Oh, this is a poison swamp.

[01:29:49] That's great.

[01:29:50] You know, give me something like that.

[01:29:52] Give me weird adventures and, um, strange NPCs and like, Oh, I don't want like, Oh,

[01:30:00] bring me back like 10 silver boots or something, you know?

[01:30:03] Right.

[01:30:03] Like, Oh, my, uh, my son's gone missing.

[01:30:08] You went to go get something for me from this mine.

[01:30:11] And like, I like that better.

[01:30:13] Like something that means things to people versus just like an item fetch thing.

[01:30:18] Right.

[01:30:19] Like, like, give me the 10 spider butts and you have to go kill.

[01:30:21] Yeah.

[01:30:22] I don't, I mean, if that has its place, I will play some like janky.

[01:30:25] I like the Euro jank game.

[01:30:27] So, um, like Riven, no, not Riven.

[01:30:29] Um, uh, uh, no.

[01:30:36] What the name is it?

[01:30:36] Piranha Byte Studios?

[01:30:37] I think they do, um, uh, Elex, I think is their.

[01:30:41] Oh, Elex.

[01:30:42] Okay.

[01:30:42] Yeah.

[01:30:42] Yeah.

[01:30:43] That's a lot of fun.

[01:30:43] I like that.

[01:30:44] You're, you're just a dude and you got like a little jet pack and you motor around the

[01:30:49] world, but then you like have to deal with factions.

[01:30:51] There's like, this is the machine faction and this one's the barbarian faction.

[01:30:55] And you can like make friends with them and then create a big faction war.

[01:31:01] Like you're just, you feel like you're, it feels like your choices matter.

[01:31:03] And so you're changing the environment and you're changing like people's lives as you go through

[01:31:09] this game and you got a jet pack.

[01:31:11] So that's, you know, that's always cool.

[01:31:13] There's a, uh, King kingdom come deliverance.

[01:31:18] Apparently Euro jank.

[01:31:19] That was like, yeah.

[01:31:21] Super hearts.

[01:31:22] Kyra.

[01:31:23] Yeah.

[01:31:23] That, that one's interesting.

[01:31:26] It's weird.

[01:31:27] Um, so the, the economy is more real, like more realistic where stuff's very, very

[01:31:32] expensive.

[01:31:33] Um, and you're just, you're rolling around and the sword fighting's weird because it's,

[01:31:38] it's, it's more realistic quote unquote.

[01:31:41] So you're, you have to control like the angle of your sword so it doesn't bounce off of someone

[01:31:45] else's weapon.

[01:31:48] It's, it's like a simulator.

[01:31:49] It's more of a simulator than, than just a RPG kind of feeling game.

[01:31:55] Yeah.

[01:31:55] It's in that, uh, it's in that one where you can like get a cut, it gets infected and

[01:32:01] then you can die from the infection or something like that.

[01:32:03] Yeah, I think so.

[01:32:04] There's like, they put a lot of realism into it.

[01:32:06] Um, not to the point where it's too much, but it's, it's in there and you can engage

[01:32:12] with it or you can just like, just try to be very careful and don't get, don't get robbed

[01:32:17] by highwaymen on the road.

[01:32:19] Um, yeah, those are, those are cool.

[01:32:22] Um, but no, Elex is great.

[01:32:24] And then just anything by that studio, their stuff's just, it's, I can't say it's not silly.

[01:32:31] They just, it's Eurojank.

[01:32:34] Like they're not super top tier games, but like, that's why they're fun.

[01:32:38] Cause there's a lot of, there's bugs and there's just weird stuff that happens.

[01:32:41] You're like, okay, didn't expect that.

[01:32:42] Um, but they put a lot of heart in their writing.

[01:32:44] So like the characters are all fun.

[01:32:47] Right.

[01:32:48] Right.

[01:32:48] You know, I, I have, I found Elex at a five below for $5.

[01:32:53] Yeah.

[01:32:54] I have it on my shelf.

[01:32:56] I haven't played it.

[01:32:56] I think it's still.

[01:32:57] Oh yeah.

[01:32:57] You got to play that.

[01:32:58] That's, that's, oh, it's so, so silly.

[01:33:03] Nothing better than just.

[01:33:04] Definitely play it.

[01:33:04] Yeah.

[01:33:05] Zipping around on a little jet pack and nobody else has like that kind of technology.

[01:33:10] So you're dealing.

[01:33:12] You're like, oh, you're, yeah.

[01:33:14] You're like a little savior guy.

[01:33:16] And so you can choose to help people or not.

[01:33:18] And, um, that one has the, I want to say it's kind of like the VAT system where I think you

[01:33:26] can target, uh, body parts.

[01:33:29] Body parts.

[01:33:30] Okay.

[01:33:30] Yeah.

[01:33:30] That's fun.

[01:33:31] Cause that, that, that, like, yeah, it's always fun.

[01:33:32] Oh, get him in the, get him in the leg.

[01:33:34] Now he can't walk after you or, or knock his weapon out of his hand.

[01:33:38] Um, yeah, that one's good.

[01:33:40] And that definitely has the, uh, oh, you, you can go to any area you want, but you definitely

[01:33:45] like, you hit walls of like, that monster is way stronger than you.

[01:33:48] So probably going to be running away.

[01:33:51] You know?

[01:33:52] It's just the spiders.

[01:33:54] Why are they killing me?

[01:33:56] That's funny.

[01:33:58] Yeah.

[01:33:58] I think, I think it is Riven.

[01:34:00] It's the pirate, pirate Lords or something.

[01:34:03] It's the same company.

[01:34:04] And they do like a, it's a trilogy of games where you are, you're a person that crashed,

[01:34:13] crashed land on an Island.

[01:34:15] And then you're just trying to survive, but it's not a survival game.

[01:34:18] You're it's an RPG.

[01:34:19] So you're, you wake up and you're like, Oh, you find a little village and they send you

[01:34:23] on a quest and the, you know, it becomes a big snowball of like story you're doing.

[01:34:27] Right.

[01:34:27] Um, it's, if you like the way Elex plays, those do the same thing.

[01:34:31] They're just, they're a little harder.

[01:34:33] I will say.

[01:34:34] Like they're not, there's a bit of grind necessary.

[01:34:36] Like you definitely can just die from anything.

[01:34:40] I don't, I don't mind the grand last night.

[01:34:42] I was like four hours just grinding out a dungeon and in like a dragon infinite wealth.

[01:34:48] So.

[01:34:48] Okay.

[01:34:49] Yeah.

[01:34:50] Yeah.

[01:34:50] Those are, those are some fun games.

[01:34:52] All, all games.

[01:34:54] Oh dude.

[01:34:54] Infinite wealth is like the only thing that I want to do for until I'm done with it.

[01:34:59] I'm 40 hours in about level 45, still on chapter five.

[01:35:05] I am having the time of my life.

[01:35:08] Yeah.

[01:35:09] Um, that one, that one just came out, didn't it?

[01:35:10] A couple of weeks ago.

[01:35:11] Yeah.

[01:35:11] A couple of weeks ago.

[01:35:12] It's fantastic, dude.

[01:35:13] It's so good.

[01:35:15] It, it's already done stuff in the story where I've had to stop and just reflect on my life.

[01:35:23] And I went to tell, tell like my wife, one of the biggest twists, like early in the game.

[01:35:28] Um, and she's like, are you okay?

[01:35:31] And I'm like, I, no, I'm not.

[01:35:33] I don't think I'm going to be okay for a while.

[01:35:35] And still I'm like processing what happened in the game.

[01:35:38] It was like, these are like fucking video game characters.

[01:35:41] Why, why is it affecting me so much?

[01:35:43] The, the writing in the Yakutsu series has always been like, it's, it's realistic, I guess, as far as emotions are concerned.

[01:35:53] Yeah.

[01:35:53] So they'll have like, everything is goofy.

[01:35:56] It's goofy as hell, but they'd have like really sincere moments with, with a lot of the characters.

[01:36:01] And you're like, oh no, that it's, it's suddenly got serious.

[01:36:04] Um, it's, it's been silly the whole time, but there's always a through line of like, no, there's, there's important people stories going on.

[01:36:13] You know?

[01:36:14] Like, uh, I, did you finish seven, uh, like a dragon?

[01:36:18] No, I, uh, I think I stopped at five.

[01:36:23] Like I, I, I'm familiar with what was going on with them though.

[01:36:26] Cause I, I, I like them enough that I just kind of like tangentially follow the stories.

[01:36:30] Right.

[01:36:31] So the, the end of seven is probably.

[01:36:38] I want to say it's the only video game ending that has actually like made me want to cry.

[01:36:45] Like I was holding onto the couch, just trying not to cry, watching the ending.

[01:36:51] And my wife walks in and she's like, are you fucking crying?

[01:36:54] I'm like, no, no.

[01:36:56] She said, you didn't cry at our wedding.

[01:36:58] If you cry now, I'm going to fucking divorce you.

[01:37:01] And I'm like holding on, just like, we're just watching the ending because the, the way that

[01:37:08] it goes, like it's in Japanese and I'm just reading the text, but like watching the performance

[01:37:12] and, and what's being said in the text.

[01:37:17] And the context of it, I was like, holy fuck.

[01:37:22] If this were to happen to me, I would be the same way.

[01:37:26] And I was just a fucking mess.

[01:37:29] It was, they got you.

[01:37:31] They got you.

[01:37:31] Oh, they, they got me.

[01:37:32] And apparently the, I did finish Guy Den, which is the one in between that and the new one.

[01:37:38] And everybody cried at the end.

[01:37:40] And I thought the end was very powerful, but I, I, I didn't cry.

[01:37:44] It's, but I can't relate to, to what was happening at the end.

[01:37:47] So that, that didn't get me, but it was very powerful.

[01:37:49] Like they are, they are going in a direction where the stories and the endings that they're

[01:37:55] telling are a whole lot more human and relatable.

[01:37:59] And I, yeah, they've been doing that.

[01:38:01] I think since three, they just started really digging into stuff.

[01:38:05] You, you played four, right?

[01:38:09] Uh, probably.

[01:38:10] They kept releasing sets of them.

[01:38:12] So I think I was just picking them up.

[01:38:14] Okay.

[01:38:14] Okay.

[01:38:15] So there's like a one character that gets framed and he goes,

[01:38:19] goes to prison and then he comes back out of prison.

[01:38:24] And I think he's like in a, in a, in a Coliseum fighting and people are like, kill him, kill him.

[01:38:29] And he just does like this whole, he like breaks down finally.

[01:38:32] And he starts screaming about how he's been thinking about what he did for all these years

[01:38:37] while he was in prison and how just killing a person is not killing a person.

[01:38:43] It's not just another person, you know, it's a whole life.

[01:38:46] That was very powerful to that, that game.

[01:38:50] People don't like it a lot, but it's still a very, very great Yakuza game.

[01:38:55] Yeah.

[01:38:55] I don't, I don't really think they have any misses.

[01:38:57] Like the, the games, they, they do, they know what they're doing and they do it well.

[01:39:03] Um, right.

[01:39:04] If you want some, some funky, fun, uh, offbeat stories, they have, they've got that.

[01:39:10] They've got like drama going on, uh, weird mini games.

[01:39:15] You just want to go beat up people on the street.

[01:39:18] I mean, you just do whatever.

[01:39:19] Right.

[01:39:19] It does the total package and, uh, they've only gotten like better and better over the years,

[01:39:25] particularly because they've been using a lot of, um, uh, not just voice talent,

[01:39:31] but like actual, like actor, like movie actors and their likenesses.

[01:39:37] And so you can recognize them from like Yakuza movies.

[01:39:40] So that's always good.

[01:39:42] Like the, uh, the, the, the three page.

[01:39:46] I don't think they're Patriots.

[01:39:47] They're lieutenants in zero.

[01:39:48] They're all actors.

[01:39:49] Like they're real life actors.

[01:39:50] Yeah.

[01:39:51] Um, and the new one, they have Danny Trejo in the game and it's just fucking crazy.

[01:39:56] Just seeing Danny Trejo, like walk out and start talking to you.

[01:40:00] Oh, that is great.

[01:40:02] It's great.

[01:40:03] So good.

[01:40:05] And, but, but yeah, um, we're almost at an hour 40.

[01:40:08] So, uh, let's go ahead and call it.

[01:40:11] Cool.

[01:40:11] Um, I, I want you to tell me about, uh, where to find, uh, monster deer monster,

[01:40:17] any other shows that you have, uh, just go ahead and plug them now all over again.

[01:40:23] All right.

[01:40:23] Yeah.

[01:40:24] You can find monster deer monster at monster deer dot monster.

[01:40:28] Make that super easy.

[01:40:30] Uh, I have a few other shows.

[01:40:33] They are unfortunately, um, they're on hiatus.

[01:40:37] So there's probably like, I don't, I don't have a link tree, but there's some stuff on,

[01:40:43] um, Twitter is probably the easiest way.

[01:40:46] So on Twitter at sentient underscore plus, um, you can find links to everything else that

[01:40:52] I've done.

[01:40:53] Uh, there's a podcast of, uh, kung fu movies.

[01:40:56] There's one on Asian sci-fi cinema from the seventies, eighties, and nineties, which I

[01:41:01] got to start that back up.

[01:41:02] That's a lot of fun.

[01:41:04] Uh, and then upcoming, there will be some bonus episodes on monster deer monster, which aren't

[01:41:09] monster related.

[01:41:10] We'll be talking about all of the Jackie Chan police store movies.

[01:41:14] Oh, wow.

[01:41:16] Okay.

[01:41:17] I'm all over the place.

[01:41:18] I love, I love movies.

[01:41:20] Yeah.

[01:41:21] No.

[01:41:21] Um, so I'm going to go ahead and plug everything, uh, into the show notes.

[01:41:25] So all people have to do is just click and.

[01:41:28] Yeah.

[01:41:29] Um, you said that it was monster deer dot monster.

[01:41:33] Yeah.

[01:41:34] Monster deer as in like deer John.

[01:41:37] Yeah.

[01:41:38] Not, not, not a deer monster.

[01:41:43] We have shows on that, but not, not a.

[01:41:47] So yeah.

[01:41:47] So I'll, I'll plug everything so you guys can go, uh, listen to Dave, um, and, and him

[01:41:54] talking about monsters and doing like deep dives on, on all that stuff.

[01:41:58] You have six sevens.

[01:42:00] You said you're currently working on season seven.

[01:42:02] It's almost wrapped up.

[01:42:04] Yeah.

[01:42:04] Um, and oh, uh, there is a podcast.

[01:42:10] I'll just send you the link, um, because I don't remember the name of it, uh, is it's

[01:42:14] the wandering swords podcast where I covered, um, almost all of berserk franchise.

[01:42:20] Um, before COVID happened.

[01:42:25] So the podcast just went away, but it covers up through, I think volume 32, um, of the manga,

[01:42:32] all of the movies, the original OVAs, um, and the, the janky, um, CGI TV series, which

[01:42:39] is the, we did the whole thing.

[01:42:40] So if people love berserk, we talked about it for, there's a lot of content to listen

[01:42:45] to.

[01:42:46] You, you guys really subjected yourselves to the new, uh, berserk anime, the, the CGI.

[01:42:53] Oh yeah.

[01:42:54] Completely censored and unwatchable.

[01:42:58] It's something.

[01:43:01] I watched the first episode.

[01:43:03] I was like, no, I am out.

[01:43:04] I cannot.

[01:43:06] It went places.

[01:43:07] They, they, it was pretty faithful to the, the manga.

[01:43:10] It just also looked horrendous, but you know.

[01:43:12] Oh yeah.

[01:43:13] Yeah.

[01:43:13] Can't win them all.

[01:43:15] Yeah.

[01:43:15] Definitely going to have to check that one out.

[01:43:17] Cause I'm, I'm a big berserk fan.

[01:43:18] Um, I need to pick it back up.

[01:43:20] Cause that.

[01:43:21] Yeah, I do too.

[01:43:22] I, I, I just like Mura passed away and I'm like, I don't know that I want to read it

[01:43:26] with someone else continuing it.

[01:43:29] I think it's fine.

[01:43:30] You could just leave it, like, let it just be.

[01:43:33] Um, but I will eventually like, maybe I'll pick up the podcast for that and wrap it up

[01:43:39] just, uh, as, as due due diligence.

[01:43:43] Right.

[01:43:43] Right.

[01:43:43] I, I need to figure out what chapter I was in.

[01:43:45] Cause last I saw guts was drowning and that's all I remember.

[01:43:51] So it, yeah.

[01:43:53] Yeah.

[01:43:53] Couldn't tell you.

[01:43:54] Right.

[01:43:56] Like how many times has he almost died?

[01:43:58] Yeah.

[01:43:59] Well, he wears heavy armor, you know, you can drown pretty easily.

[01:44:02] Right.

[01:44:03] Right.

[01:44:03] So, um, so yeah, man, it, this has been a blast.

[01:44:07] Thank you for coming on.

[01:44:08] Um, I, I definitely want to bring you back on.

[01:44:10] I want to bring you and Jala together back on cause you guys.

[01:44:14] Thanks for having me on.

[01:44:15] Um, yeah, that would be a fun one too.

[01:44:17] Oh yeah.

[01:44:18] Always.

[01:44:19] You guys are great.

[01:44:21] You guys have like these odd games that I've never heard of that, that are super interesting.

[01:44:27] We, you know, also, you know, the, the, the games that I do know about that are just so

[01:44:33] much fun to talk about and, and, you know, seeing like all of your different perspectives,

[01:44:37] like you grew up with the NES and you didn't like the 64.

[01:44:41] So you went back to the Genesis.

[01:44:42] That's, that's just so funny.

[01:44:44] Just bouncing around, man.

[01:44:45] Um, and you know, between the two of us, myself and Jala, our interests, some of them, uh, coincide,

[01:44:51] but we have enough of a variety to like talk about different things.

[01:44:55] And she has anecdotes.

[01:44:56] Like I, I don't always have stories.

[01:44:59] She has stories.

[01:45:00] Oh yeah.

[01:45:01] No, no.

[01:45:01] She, when, when I had her on, uh, earlier, uh, she was telling me some of the stories

[01:45:06] and they, they were just fantastic.

[01:45:08] Like, like how you guys met and how she kept telling you that you were going to be her husband.

[01:45:15] I was like, yep, that sounds about right.

[01:45:17] And then I just, uh, look, she just like in sniper elite, she just goes in and, and, and

[01:45:24] wrecks the battlefield in real life.

[01:45:25] And, uh, I'm, I'm the support character.

[01:45:27] So it's like, she just kept saying, and you're like, yeah, you're right.

[01:45:31] And then just kind of like rolled with it.

[01:45:34] Yeah.

[01:45:34] And then, and here we are, it's worked out just fine.

[01:45:38] It's great.

[01:45:39] It's great.

[01:45:39] So, yeah.

[01:45:40] So, uh, that's it for this week's episode, everyone.

[01:45:42] Um, just make sure to check out Dave, uh, check out his stuff.

[01:45:46] It's going to be all, well, you can probably see it right now, all in the, in the show notes.

[01:45:50] And, uh, yeah.

[01:45:52] Uh, do you want to say goodbye to everyone, Dave?

[01:45:54] Yeah.

[01:45:55] Um, you guys have a good one and, uh, thanks for listening.

[01:45:58] All right.

[01:45:59] Goodbye, everyone.